Focusing on the death of Aisha Zughbieh-Collins, 18, in East Portland, Ore., an investigation unpacks perhaps the most alarming recent development in the opioid crisis: a transformed smuggling economy featuring synthetic drugs from China purchased in the deepest recesses of the internet, where the common currency is Bitcoin. In this case, the trail would take police cross-country to a condo in South Carolina, and to one of the Dark Web's most prolific synthetic opioid sellers.
From Willamette Week:
Aisha's mother told detectives she thought her daughter bought U4 online, and she provided them with Aisha's email address. ... The drug Aisha bought had been hidden in a VeriQuick brand pregnancy test kit—sold only at Dollar Tree stores—and appeared to have arrived from an unknown seller in a U.S. Postal Service shipping envelope from South Carolina.
Those were clues. But the detectives couldn't work their way up the usual chain of delivery as they do in heroin cases.
"Our calls usually come from people complaining about a neighborhood drug house," the detective says. "This online stuff is at a completely different level."
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