Six other people admitted for adulterated cocaine in Argentina

Argentina registered this Monday a new episode of admissions for adulterated cocaine, similar to the one that killed 24 people last week on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The cases were registered this time in Rosario, the third largest city in the country, located 300 kilometers north of the Argentine capital and epicenter of drug trafficking in the central region of Argentina. Since Sunday night, Rosario hospitals have treated six people, four of whom are in very serious condition, connected to a mechanical respirator. The victims bought the cocaine in a neighborhood dominated by Los Monos, the drug gang that controls the Rosario drug trade.

The Ministry of Security of Santa Fe, the province where Rosario is located, had already warned that the adulterated drug that killed in Buenos Aires could reach its territory. There is, however, no certainty that it is the same batch of cocaine. The authorities still don’t know what the item sold in Buenos Aires was cut with. Although at first it was thought of fentanyl, a synthetic opiate 50 times more powerful than heroin, the first scientific studies have been negative. The Minister of Security of the province of Buenos Aires, Sergio Berni, has told local media that they are sure that it is an opiate because the patients who survived last week’s poisoning responded to the usual antidote, naloxone, but not they know what it is. “As we do not have this kind of homemade fentanyl registered, it is difficult for us to molecularly break down the composition of that drug. The most logical thing is to think that it was lowered with something similar to fentanyl, ”explained Berni, who is a military doctor by profession.

Contaminated cocaine in Buenos Aires can contain up to 200 different opiates, and the detection system needs to be told which one to look for. Hence the delay of scientists analyzing the deadly mixture. It is also not possible to follow the traceability of the drug in the illegal market, but if it is discovered that the cut in Buenos Aires and Rosario was made with the same substance, it will at least be known that it is the same batch. If so, one of the first hypotheses of the researchers will be ruled out: it would no longer be a war between local gangs for control of the territory (and willing to contaminate the rival’s merchandise), but a mix that went wrong on the part of from a regional supplier that supplies central Argentina.

Patients admitted to Rosario arrived at hospitals with the same sensory and respiratory problems as those who died in Buenos Aires. In less than 24 hours, the police arrested the alleged distributor of the adulterated cocaine in Las Flores, a marginal neighborhood of Rosario dominated by the Los Monos gang. The group controls all drug sales in the port city, powerful for being the main exit point for grain exports from the most fertile basin in Argentina. Over the years, Rosario, birthplace of Lionel Messi and Fito Páez, to name just two of its illustrious neighbors, has become a stronghold for mafias linked to drug trafficking.

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