U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Philadelphia-based officers have seized five shipments containing a total of 57 pounds of ketamine hydrochloride, an animal anesthetic dangerously abused by users and sexual predators.
The agency have this account:
On June 21, CBP officers inspected a parcel manifested as fishing rods being shipped from the Netherlands to Miami. Instead, CBP officers discovered a white crystalline substance inside six small plastic buckets in the parcel. The six ketamine buckets weighed just shy of 28 pounds.
CBP officers tested the substance using a handheld elemental isotope analysis tool and identified the substance as ketamine hydrochloride.
On June 27, CBP officers seized four shipments that arrived from Germany. Each of the parcels were manifested as containing other items, such as toys, replacement rollers, or picture frames, and were destined to separate addresses in Broward County, Fla.
One of the other recent seizures of ketamine by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (COURTESY OF CPB)
Inside two of the four parcels, CBP officers discovered a total of eight vacuum-sealed bags of a white crystalline substance concealed inside boxes supposed to contain toys.
In the other two parcels, CBP officers discovered a total of five vacuum-sealed bags of a white crystalline product concealed inside the backing of picture frames. Collectively, these 13 vacuum-sealed bags weighed 13.225 kilograms or 29 pounds and two ounces. These substances also tested positive for ketamine hydrochloride.
Collectively, the 57 pounds, 2 ounces of ketamine had a street value of about $1.5 million.
Ketamine is used lawfully in both human and veterinary medicine to induce sedation, immobility, and relief from pain. Ketamine can induce dissociative sensations and hallucinations like that induced by PCP.
Ketamine is often cut or combined with other dangerous compounds, such as ecstasy, and abused at raves and dance clubs, and it has been used by sexual predators to incapacitate their victims during sexual assaults. Overdoses can lead to serious health threats, such as nausea, elevated heart rate, unconsciousness, convulsions, and respiratory failure.
An investigation continues.
“Ketamine is a very dangerous anesthetic that can seriously harm abusers and unsuspecting victims, and so it’s an illicit drug that Customs and Border Protection officers take immense pleasure at intercepting before it can reach our communities,” said Cleatus P. Hunt Jr., area port director for CBP’s Area Port of Philadelphia. “CBP remains committed to combatting drug trafficking organizations by seizing their poisonous shipments at our nation’s ports of entry.”
The most recent high-profile death from the drug was actor Matthew Perry.