Deadly nitazene drug adverts on X and SoundCloud

Key Facts

• Thousands of posts offering deadly drugs known as nitazenes have been found on X and the music platform SoundCloud by a BBC investigation.
• The BBC investigation identified thousands of social media posts advertising the drugs, including: nearly 3,000 posts on SoundCloud, some dating back a year - posts on the music streaming service contained brief audio clips, often lasting just a few seconds, with the drug's name and contact details appearing as the title of the track more than 700 posts on X - the oldest had been on the platform for more than 18 months, but the vast majority of posts had been published since the start of 2023 * one post from a supplier advertising on X in March 2024, who had been indicted and sanctioned in the US in September 2023 over the shipping of 15kg of nitazenes from China Posing as a drug dealer, we contacted 35 suppliers - 14 of whom were advertising on SoundCloud, six advertising on X, and 15 whom we contacted via a website promoting wholesale chemical manufacturers.
• While we found evidence that dealers in the US and the UK are using social media to connect with the suppliers, we have no evidence of individual drug users doing this.
• "How many people have died as a result of that being advertised there?" 'MOTIVATED BY GREED' Image caption, The Met Police shut down an illegal pill factory in west London that produced hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Xanax pills in 2022 Other opioids, including heroin and morphine, are made from poppy plants - and at one time, most heroin imported into the UK came from fields in Afghanistan.

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