Inside a stylish Lower East Side cocktail bar late Saturday night, a crowd of young partygoers formed a queue outside the toilet as punk music blared in the background.
Then one among the workers of an area restaurant cut through the noise warning: “If anyone is stoning up tonight, do it safely and get tested!”
This has turn out to be a disturbing recent reality each on and off the NYC party scene as fentanyl, an artificial opioid responsible chargeable for roughly 150 overdose deaths in america a day, it has infiltrated almost every aspect of the illicit drug market — leaving unsuspecting users and their families dizzy.
“I’m surprised an increasing number of people do not realize that fentanyl is certainly making its way into cocaine stockpiles,” New York drug prosecutor Bridget Brennan said in an interview.
The low-cost lab-made drug is commonly combined with other illicit substances as a result of its potency, mixing with heroin, methamphetamine and even cocaine. It’s also pressed into pills that seem like other pharmaceutical opioids or benzodiazepines.
The epidemic is causing suffering that crosses all demographics, killing people on the streets, the center class and the wealthy and famous – equivalent to Leandro De Niro Rodriguez, grandson of famous actor Robert De Niro, who was found dead of an overdose on 19 earlier this month from suspects drugs containing fentanyl allegedly sold to him by a 20-year-old dealer often called “Percocet Princess”.
![Fentanyl test strips](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000012825969.jpg?w=1024)
“People will say, ‘Don’t be concerned, I got it from my guy. But anyone can die from bad drugs,” said Darryl Phillips, 48, founding father of the nonprofit that distributes fentanyl test strips.
“Demi Lovato, Lil Peep, Mac Miller. They paid top dollar they usually weren’t any safer.”
Rapper Lil Peep, friend of Post Malone, died in 2017 after taking Xanax combined with fentanyl. The next 12 months, Miller, one other rapper, died in consequence of a lethal dose of fentanyl contained in cocaine. Lovato he nearly died the identical 12 months from the same cocktail.
Law enforcement and public health officials have been warning against fentanyl for years. However the variety of fatal overdoses linked to the deadly opioid continues to achieve record levels.
In america last 12 months, there have been 102,429 drug-related deaths – the overwhelming majority of which were attributable to fentanyl.
The deluge of tainted drugs is fueled by the youngsters of notorious Mexican king Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who has taken over the reins of his murderous Sinaloa Cartel, together with the so-called Jalisco Next Generation Cartel, which has a whole bunch of members openly operating in america.
Cartels have turned drug trafficking right into a policing game by utilizing social media, encrypted text messaging apps and low-cost technology, creating recent challenges for law enforcement attempting to disrupt the flow.
But for people like Phillips, the ultimate phase of the War on Drugs is not about making quick bucks – he’s just uninterested in watching his friends die.
![Bar scene](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014059930.jpg?w=1024)
How Fentanyl Flooded Resources:
Fentanyl has turn out to be a darling of the cartels as an affordable, deadly alternative cutting agent, increasing the potency of their drugs and increasing their profits.
Interviews with federal and native law enforcement officials, together with a review of public testimony and reports from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, reveal how the trade has evolved, bringing the deadly drug into the hands of on a regular basis users and partygoers in the U.S.
Fentanyl — a fast-acting painkiller and anesthetic 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine — began appearing on the drug market in 2013.
Inside two years, the DEA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a rare, nationwide alert that fentanyl poses a “serious risk to public health and safety” since the synthetic opioid has contributed to the “alarming rate” of drug-related deaths.
Initially, the cartels began by buying fentanyl in various concentrations in bulk and mixing it in labs, which allowed them to stretch one kilogram of other drugs into dozens.
![Fentanyl opiate heroin methamphetamine in laboratory with beakers in pill bags and powder](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058265.jpg?w=1024)
In the next years, the crew of Sinaloa – a significant supplier of medication in the New York area – and New Generation Jalisco, or Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación or CJNG, learned to make their very own fentanyl by buying chemicals from China and India, and started smuggling powder and compressed pills into the US.
The cartels realized that the convenience of manufacturing fentanyl was way more profitable for his or her criminal enterprise than the production of heroin, which needed to be cultivated, harvested after which processed.
Kilograms of fentanyl cost about $6,000 south of the border, but cost between $30,000 and $35,000 by the point they reach New York. A fentanyl pill may be made in Mexico for about 10 cents and sold in the Big Apple for between $10 and $30.
“The cartel is exploiting … exploiting our addiction, exploiting the issue of substance-dependent disorders here in america to earn more money,” said Frank Tarentino, the DEA’s special agent in charge of the agency’s New York division.
“The more people they will get hooked on, the more people they should purchase their product, the more cash they’ll make.”
When the feds raised the alarm in 2014 3334 of drug cases — that is, any substance seized and sent to a laboratory, including for involvement in an overdose — tested positive for fentanyl. By 2021 it’s the number increased to 153,949.
Much of this increase, in response to officials, is expounded to the influx of synthetic party drugs with almost every street pill and cocaine containing trace amounts of fentanyl.
“It is a disaster. It’s unprecedented,” Tarentino said. “We have never seen such destruction in our country with regards to illegal drugs.”
![Special Agent in Charge of the New York Drug Enforcement Administration, Frank A. Tarentino III](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014058608.jpg?w=1024)
From Mexico to New York: Tracing the Fentanyl Flow
The fentanyl trade has turn out to be much “more diverse” over the past decade as Mexican cartels streamlined their process – and located recent ways to move the illicit drug through america.
Shipments start in Sinaloa, the Mexican state in the northwestern a part of the country, and are transported to Tijuana, south of the California border, where smugglers prepare the packages, sometimes hiding them in hidden compartments or in fruit or vegetable crates.
Once in america, shipments can reach the town either by exchanging at New Jersey truck stops or on to an area distributor, often situated in the Bronx. Cars with foreign plates are increasingly bringing kilograms of fentanyl into the town – in the shape of powder or pills.
“They’re generally from the West Coast, normally California. After which they appear to travel overland and convey those loads into the town,” said Brennan, New York’s special narcotics attorney.
![New York City Special Drug Prosecutor Bridget Brennan](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000012923672-1.jpg?w=1024)
One other tactic of the cartel once shipments are in the US is to maneuver them from San Diego to Los Angeles warehouses. From there, smugglers pack several kilos of enormous home goods – ceiling fans, for instance – and mail them nationwide to destinations in New York City.
Once the package arrives in New York, a low-ranking cartel member picks it up before handing it over to local distributors.
“We all know with absolute certainty that the Sinaloa Cartel sends members to this region to move large amounts of medication,” Tarentino said in a recent interview, estimating that there are currently about 250 members of the Sinaloa Cartel operating in America.
The shipping process has been a challenge for the feds, said the special agent, who didn’t call it a deadlock for the feds.
“It’s hard to discover packages unless you may have some inside information where you would possibly have a clue or lead or some prior knowledge of this package being shipped,” Tarentino said.
“Otherwise, they may have fired 100 packs from Mexico or 100 packs from anywhere, and possibly 98 would have gotten through and two would have been seized,” he added. “It’s extremely profitable.”
The cartels also armed easy technology to encrypt conversations – which created a “big problem” for the feds to acquire leads on recent shipments. In some cases, smugglers also equip packages with listening devices to watch whether the packages have fallen into the hands of law enforcement.
“Drug trafficking is absolutely limited by the imagination of the traffickers,” he said.
![Bags of illegal drugs laced with fentanyl](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000013860491.jpg?w=1024)
A private epidemic
Phillips, founding father of the A$AP Foundation, fights a private battle with the cartels each day as he takes a recent approach to contain the epidemic of fentanyl-related deaths.
“I’m not saying don’t take drugs,” Phillips, 46, recently told The Post. “It won’t work. If someone is using, attempt to be protected. Test it out.”
As The Post joined Phillips on the LES as he refilled boxes of fentanyl test strips at greater than half a dozen participating Orchard Street businesses – including one that warned bartenders to check their drugs – he was greeted warmly at every stop .
“It’s higher to have people testing drugs in the toilet than overdosing,” Phillips said.
![Young friends are dancing at a party in a nightclub](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/NYPICHPDPICT000014059964.jpg?w=1024)
Upmarket streetwear store 375 Showroom – where you needed to enter The Post and was greeted by a tall security guard – was the primary place Phillips put up test strips in 2019.
“Almost everyone in these places knows someone who’s dead,” said one store manager, Evan, as he presented a couple of dozen sweatshirts to an incoming customer who expected to drop a number of pieces on his clothes.
Other businesses in the varied Phillips chain in the world include an Instagram-freaked bar, a high-end women’s clothing store, art galleries and a Mexican restaurant featured in The New York Times.
“I really like that now we have kits here,” said Christian, an worker at Scarr’s Pizza on Orchard Street, as Phillips filled a shoebox-sized clear container with several dozen tests.
“My friend just overdosed on Saturday,” he said from behind the counter.
“Did he survive?” Phillips asked.
“No… he died.”