From the outside they are normal, ordinary apartments.
But dozens of New York City homes have been converted into fentanyl factories, producing millions of dollars worth of deadly drugs.
Now authorities are lifting the lid on signs that a unit has been taken over by gangs, after the death of 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici at a Bronx daycare that had been converted into one of the factories.
A series of recent raids have revealed that, in addition to apartments and a daycare, a pizzeria had been converted into a drug factory.
Bridget Brennan, special narcotics prosecutor for New York City, told The Post that traffickers look for the most innocuous locations. “The goal is not to stand out,” she said. “Sometimes workers at these fentanyl factories come and go at all hours. Apartment buildings are good for that, since the coming and going doesn’t attract attention.”
Inside, sometimes behind reinforced front doors, workers earn up to $1,000 a day, in cash, for handling a drug so deadly that ingesting just two milligrams (the equivalent of 10 to 15 grains of table salt) can be deadly.
This is how drug dealers turn a normal apartment into a fentanyl factory, capable of producing millions of dollars worth of deadly drugs 24 hours a day. Nicholas Feliz Dominici, held in the arms of her mother Zoila Dominici, died from exposure to fentanyl at the Bronx daycare where she and her father, Otionel Feliz, trusted her safety. Unbeknownst to them, it was being used as a pill mill. Otoniel Feliz/Instagram
They mix the artificial opioid with other substances, such as heroin or cocaine, dilute its potency with baking soda, baby laxative or caffeine, and package the pills and powders for distribution to traffickers in and around New York City.
Ideally, dens face roads that conveniently lead to drug trafficking destinations and reduce the risk of traveling urban streets with illicit cargo in the trunk.
Fentanyl arrives compressed in one kilo blocks. Sometimes the blocks are covered in grease to avoid detection.
One of the dozens of fentanyl factories was at 2800 Heath Avenue in the Bronx, where authorities dismantled a pill mill operating out of one of the apartments there. Google Maps Glass tables, often located in bedrooms, provide ideal surfaces for cutting drugs. Air purifiers and air conditioners, however, don’t do much to keep deadly dusts out of the air. DEA Drug dealers were loading pills in capsules on this table when the police raided the pill factory. DEA
Once opened, with the grease inevitably splattered on the floor, the fentanyl is broken up and put into a coffee grinder to turn into powder, meaning the dens will be filled with burnt grinders when the police arrive.
Once converted into a fine powder, the deadly substance can be mixed with cocaine or heroin and cut with baking powder, baby laxatives or caffeine powder. This powder can be packaged in glass sachets and sold.
Or it can be poured into a pill press (a tabletop machine, available online) that uses 1.5 tons of pressure to press up to 5,000 pills per hour. Ideally, this is done in a soundproofed basement, because pill pressing machines are as loud as jackhammers.
This was the chaos police found in a raid on a pill factory. DEA Special Agent in Charge of New York, Frank Tarentino, said the factories “are not sanitary areas.” DEA duct tape and glass envelopes are used to package drugs that are distributed to dealers and end up in the bloodstreams of convicted addicts. At a Bronx fentanyl factory, police confiscated $1 million worth of individual doses, in envelopes wrapped in unused lottery tickets and others stamped with logos like “Hiroshima” and “anthrax.”
Frank Tarentino, special agent in charge of the DEA’s New York division, told The Post: “These are sparsely furnished apartments with the bare minimum.
“Usually, there’s a couch, a couple of beds; Sometimes when the shipment is large, the work is done 24 hours a day. That’s when people sleep between shifts instead of leaving. Maybe there’s a PlayStation set up. “They need something to occupy their time when they’re not running around.”
Work usually takes place in the bedroom, while Mr. Big of the operation keeps everything under control from inside the living room.
Fentanyl seized at a factory where workers were accused of throwing the drug at authorities in an effort to defend themselves. DEA heroin can be inexpensively enhanced by adding fentanyl. Unfortunately, addicts are not aware of this. Fentanyl is often the core of OD drugs. DEA
“Normally there will be a glass table, so they can see all the particles under bright lights,” Tarentino said. “The windows are covered with black garbage bags, so no one can see what they are doing.
“There will be dust everywhere, tablets for pills, takeaway food. You see metro cards on the table; They are used to collect drugs and move them.
“You always see glass envelopes [that the drugs are sold in] and tape to keep them closed.”
Most of the pills are sealed, Brennan said.
Merchants put stamps on the bags or envelopes in which they sell powders or pills. These were some found in a factory raid. Other DEA fentanyl products were marked “Coronavirus,” while others mentioned former President Trump. A dealer who distributed his drugs outside a McDonald’s used the Golden Arches to identify his product. DEA
“One we see is I-95. That is the highway by which many of these things are transported to different places. There has been a Trump stamp and another with the Golden Arches and the words “I love it.” “That was for a guy who was selling drugs in front of a McDonald’s.”
And it’s not just drugs that are discovered on these missions. Sometimes cash is involved, and in at least one case, officers found a baby asleep in a bedroom.
Air conditioners run constantly in an attempt to keep the air clean. Air purifiers rest on drug-strewn tables. But these efforts to clarify things are usually in vain.
A stash seized from the fentanyl factory that had been operating out of an apartment at 2800 Heath Avenue in the Bronx. DEA fentanyl pills, like the ones pictured, are produced in machines that apply 1.5 tons of pressure per pill, churn out about 5,000 per hour, and are as loud as jackhammers when they press their poisonous products. .DEA
The danger is not only for pill manufacturers. “We’ve had cases,” Brennan said, “where [the criminals] “He threw drugs at the investigator who was entering.” Getting hit in the face with a large amount of fentanyl can be fatal.
There may be touches that are close to homey.
“People wear K95 masks thinking it will protect them from airborne fentanyl; They probably won’t,” Brennan said. “But I remember seeing a windmill where all the masks were hanging with people’s names on them.”
Agents and police officers also found inspiring art, including a sign that said “You Can Do It,” placed on a shelf above cold medicine and an asthma inhaler. Next to a plastic bag with white powder and blocks of drugs was a cup with a cartoonish illustration that said “I love SPK.”
And, Tarentino cautioned, the fact that there is professional laboratory equipment (such as beakers, flasks, strainers and scales) is no reason to believe that factories are places where dangerous drugs are handled with medical-grade care.
“There’s no quality control,” said Tarentino, who has seen more than his share of deaths related to fentanyl-related drugs. “These are scientific experiments that go wrong every day.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn