Heroin against fentanyl war over Europe. How to protect our children [OKO.PRESS INVESTIGATION]

Publikujemy angielską wersję cyklu 4 reportaży Szymona Opryszka, które ukazały się w OKO.press.

Reporterskie śledztwo OKO.press.

Pojechałem do Meksyku śladem sfałszowanych tabletek znanego leku z domieszką fentanylu. Mafia bałkańska miała je ściągnąć do Europy Wschodniej. Spotkałem się z kucharzem fentanylu w meksykańskim stanie Sinaloa. Nawiązałem kontakt ze sprzedawcami prekursorów tego narkotyku w Chinach. Rozmawiałem z afgańskimi rolnikami opium i wieloma ekspertami od rynku narkotyków i bezpieczeństwa publicznego.

W czteroodcinkowym śledztwie szukam odpowiedzi na pytanie: Czy Europie grozi kryzys fentanylu?

OKO.press reporter’s investigation.

I went to Mexico looking for counterfeit tablets of a well-known drug with fentanyl mixed into it. The Balkan mafia was supposed to bring them into Eastern Europe. I met a fentanyl cook in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. I made contact with the sellers of this drug’s precursors in China. I talked to some Afghan opium farmers and many experts on the narcotics and public safety market.

In this four-part investigation, I look for answers to the question of: Is Europe under threat of a fentanyl crisis?

English version of part I is here:

English version of part II is here:

English version of part III is here:

Below is part IV, the last part of Szymon Opryszek reportage.

‘The Taliban came and started beating me. They were shouting: “No planting, or we’ll lock you up!”.’

‘Just like that?’

‘They even announced it in the mosques. Our imam read a letter from the Taliban, in which they threatened that opium poppy cultivation would result in corporal punishment. What was I supposed to do? My father is old and weak. He advised me: “Son, don’t plant it, or they will beat you up again!” I took a stick and destroyed everything, to the very last plant.’

He planted poppies and learned to count

Ebrahim, who was beaten up by the Taliban, comes from the village of Taj Gultan in the Chaharbolak district of the Balkh province in Afghanistan. He doesn’t know how old he is. He estimates that he is coming up to fifty, because his hair has turned grey. He dropped out of school in the sixth grade because his father told him to take up sheep herding. He can barely read today. His house was destroyed during the war, and he moved to a neighbouring district. His uncle left for Iran leaving a field of an area of four jeribs (80 acres). Ebrahim planted opium poppies and learned to count well.

‘We cultivated them for two years; even in the first year of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan [the country’s official name after the Taliban came to power in 2021]. The traders paid in cash; we sold every kilogram for 12,000 afghanis. When I harvested half of the field, I earned 1.2 million afghanis. I was able to eat and I paid off my debts.’

‘And then?’

‘It all ended. The Taliban came and destroyed the fields. Absolute lawlessness,’ protests Ebrahim. ‘This is a government of tyrants. They don’t care about anyone: not about women, not about children, not about the elderly. What do we eat? How is our health supposed to be treated? They are only thinking about power. They should tell us what to grow. Wheat? Corn? Perhaps mung beans?’

‘Why not?’

‘A wholesaler pays 250 afghanis [$3.60] for a seer [about 7 kilograms] of wheat. But since the prohibition was introduced, a kilogram of opium now costs 60,000 afghanis, perhaps even more. See the difference?’

Why the Taliban don’t want opium

Afghanistan has been the world’s leading producer of opium for over three decades.

This is a substance made from the dried milky juice of unripe opium poppy heads. It contains the psychoactive morphine from which heroin is made.

Opium drives the economy and creates jobs (it is estimated that as many as half a million citizens worked in this sector). It allows the poorest to survive in a devastated and crisis-ridden country.

Today, almost every gram of heroin circulating around Europe is produced in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban completely banned poppy cultivation in 2022. As arises from the analysis (link: https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_opium_survey_2023.pdf) of the satellite images of crops made by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), due to the prohibition, the area of land used to cultivating poppies declined by as much as 95% in almost all provinces (except Badakhshan).

Why did the Taliban ban opium if its production accounts for 15% of GDP?

‘You can look at it like this: if they manage to stop opium cultivation, they will have something to offer the international community. We should remember that the Taliban government is not supported by almost any country in the world,’ says Alexandre Nobajas, co-author of the UNODC report. ‘The new law is stopping the inflow of dollars and striking at thousands of farmers. The prohibition could lead to a huge humanitarian crisis, as the government is not giving them any alternative.

Before the Taliban announced the prohibition, each hectare of opium poppy cultivation generated an annual income of $10,000, more than three times the average annual salary.

In the first year of the prohibition alone, Afghan farmers lost around $1.25 billion. Consequently, according to the UNODC, ‘an estimated 15.3 million Afghans were acutely food insecure between May and October 2023, including 3.4 million that required sustained humanitarian support to prevent catastrophic levels of hunger.’

Spain prefers cocaine and amphetamine

What does opium production from Afghanistan have to do with the fentanyl threat in Europe?

‘More than you can imagine,’ smiles David Pere Martínez Oró, social psychologist and author of the report ‘Fentanyl in Spain.’ Evidence, observations and realities about fentanyl in Spain’. He analysed the factors that that could affect the presence of the zombie drug on the streets of Spanish towns and cities in an extensive analysis.

‘You write that “fentanyl’s profitability made it an ideal candidate to fill the gap left by Afghan heroin”,’ I ask the researcher.

‘Replacing one substance with another, temporarily or permanently, is a constant phenomenon in this business. First there was opium, replaced by morphine, and then morphine was replaced by heroin. Heroin was then replaced in the early 20th century by the discovery of stronger opiates in Bayer’s laboratories. And after all, the opioid crisis in the U.S. also recently involved substitutions: opioid drugs appeared in place of heroin, then fentanyl. The third period started in 2019 and applies to the gradual replacement of fentanyl with even stronger nitazenes and xylazine. Would you agree that the replacement of heroin with fentanyl in Europe would be completely in line with the history of narcotics?’

‘Is that why you assumed that, if there was no heroin on the European market, fentanyl would inevitably take its place?’

‘Yes. The hypothesis only applies to Spain and I quickly refute it. Cocaine and amphetamine are mainly taken in our country. In a country of 45 million people, we only have 60,000 heroin or opioid addicts. The addict care network is at a high level; it would quickly detect fentanyl and, judging by the number of overdoses, we can see that Spain does not have it. Besides, doctors prescribe numerous legal opioids in my country. Anyone who wants to can go to see a doctor. We are not as attractive a market for synthetic opioids as the Baltic States or Romania. A bigger threat is methamphetamine or Afghan heroin – they can cause serious damage, even fatal overdoses, but under no circumstances will they lead to a public health crisis.’

Heroin won't let fentanyl in

‘In your analysis, you go back to 2000, when the Taliban also tried to regulate the opium market. Why?’

‘That prohibition resulted in the 2001 harvest amounting to just 185 tons of opium. Or in other words, it was lower than last year. Some researchers believe that the result of that ban was a replacement of heroin in Estonia with fentanyl, because the northern route through which it was supplied collapsed. But other researchers claim that fentanyl had already appeared in the Baltic States in the 1990s and came from the stockpiles of the Soviet troops. The fact is that, despite that prohibition, heroin continued to flow to European markets via the Balkan route. That is why I argue that, as long as heroin is on the European markets, there will be no demand for fentanyl.’

‘One condition would have to be met. The Taliban will not continue the opium prohibition,’ I say.

‘From the European point of view, we see the Taliban preaching the most halal Islam. That is why they are fighting opium. But it is a country with a great deal of territorial diversity, full of remote valleys and inaccessible areas. Additionally, it is multi-ethnic, forty languages are spoken there, and each ethnic group has its own particular interests, including with regard to opium. The economic crisis, the tragic humanitarian situation, hunger, high opium prices, corruption and primarily the internal tribal and ideological divisions among the Taliban, make the ban unsustainable. It is already weakening and I think it will disappear in many, if not all, provinces. It is inevitable that cultivation will be revived, so the flow of heroin will continue. Even if production does not reach the level at which it was before the prohibition, it will be enough to supply Europe. A potential shortfall will first affect Asia and Africa, where wholesale prices of heroin are much lower than on our continent.

Not a single happy day in his life

The Spanish researcher’s opinion confirms the argument raised by Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of Counter Extremism. In his opinion, the Taliban’s prohibition is an attempt to maximize profits while lulling the international community into a false sense of security. In 2021, a kilogram of dried opium cost an average of $63, whereas a year after the prohibition was introduced, it already cost $408, and in early 2024 it cost over $1,200.

‘A trader I know kept opium in warehouses and did not send supplies abroad. He is selling it today for a price that is several times higher. There are many like him in Afghanistan. Many people still cultivate it secretly in remote places,’ says Ebrahim. ‘Opium does not have an expiry date. The longer it is stored, the better; it can be stored for up to twenty years.’

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) estimates that the time between the opium harvest and the appearance of heroin on European markets is at least two years. So today, heroin from the last harvest before the introduction of the prohibition, and possibly even from earlier seasons, is being taken in Europe. That is why, Martínez Oró claims the stocks in Afghanistan will run out no earlier than in October 2025, and could last until June 2028.

Afghanistan is suffocating without opium

‘Everyone has something saved up for a rainy day. I do too,’ adds Mohammad. ‘I’m waiting for the prices to increase so that I can sell then. I sold a kilogram last year because I had serious financial problems.’

Mohammad is a farmer from the Sholgara district in Balkh province. Afghanistan for him is just war, escape and poverty. If he were to tell everyone, it would take him about two hours. It’s a shame to waste his time since, as he says, he has never had a single happy day in his life.

‘How could we escape? Neither my wife nor I even have personal identity cards. We’ve never seen a passport close up. I don't even know what such a document looks like.’

‘But others have escaped?’

‘Yes. After the Taliban’s prohibition, many of them sold their land and left. To the city or to Iran. Those who remained are trying to plant other plants, such as asafoetida [stinking gum, also known as devil’s dung in Poland]. But it takes several years to mature and is not as profitable.’

‘How do you save yourselves?’

‘People still grow opium and sell it, but in great secrecy. I do too. Traders buy it and secretly take it abroad. It’s risky because the Taliban have spies among our neighbours. One of my friends, Nasrat, had such a hidden field. The Taliban caught him, beat him up and destroyed his crops. He has been in prison for a year,’ says Mohammed. ‘This has to change. Without opium there is no work, no money, nothing. Afghanistan is suffocating without opium.’

A favourable playing field for criminal groups

Alexandre Nobajas, coordinator of the UNODC report on opium cultivation in Afghanistan, is more careful. He believes the country’s opium reserves are ‘significant’, but difficult to estimate. It is also difficult to verify information about external warehouses on the three main heroin transit routes to Europe.

The ‘Northern Route’, which leads through Central Asia to Russia and then on to Europe, seems to be frozen today because of the war in Ukraine. The other two, the ‘Caucasus Route’ and the ‘Balkan Route’ are largely controlled by the Turkish mafia. So the heroin ends up in the Balkan countries and is then distributed by local mafias throughout Europe. (I wrote more about the involvement of gangs from Albania and Montenegro, among others, in the retail sales of cocaine supplied to Europe by the Mexican mafias in the second part of this investigation}.

Turkey’s role seems to be key one. Dr Mahmut Cengiz, a criminologist specializing in the Turkish mafia in his work for the U.S. Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC), believes that Turkey’s transformation under Recep Erdogan into an authoritarian and kleptocratic state has created a ‘favourable playing field for criminal groups’ .

At the beginning of the century, Turkish groups dominated the heroin market in Europe, whereas, today, they are also involved in the trading of ecstasy and captagon in the Persian Gulf countries, as well as methamphetamine in Asia.

As a result of the tacit consent of the authorities, but also the dismissal of 40,000 police officers (including entire drug squads) after the failed coup in 2016, many high-ranking government officials make money on the side from drug trafficking. For example, the case of Erkam Yildirim, the son of former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, was widely publicized. He was involved in importing cocaine from Venezuela.

Turkish and Albanian gangs welcome the Sinaloa cartel

Turkey has also become an important and safe haven for the Sinaloa cartel, which, thanks to local gangs, can supply cocaine to Europe. At least several major seizures in recent years have taken place on ships sailing under the Turkish flag or headed to Turkish ports.

The Mexicans bring the goods over and train Turkish chefs. In return they can count on a relatively safe passage and new businesses, such as smuggling VIP migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia to the U.S. But primarily money laundering.

Dr Cengiz believes these connections enable the cartel to ‘expand its operations’. ‘Cooperation with the Turkish groups opens up alternative routes and methods of reaching target markets in Europe. It helps the cartel not only to avoid law enforcement, but also maximizes profits,’ says the Turkish criminologist.

‘The Mexicans will not come with their fentanyl. Unless they have the approval of the Turks and Albanians,’ believes Martínez Oró. ‘Europe is a small market, which has its suppliers. Any changes in the market would result in violence, and after all, the Mexican gangs are guests here and are not interested in that. Meanwhile, as long as the Turks have Afghan heroin, they will not want to complicate anything.

‘Why?’

‘The Turkish and Albanian gangs do not have a big business structure like Sinaloa. They are rather based on clan dependencies. And since the heroin business is doing well, why would they want to expose relatives and friends with whom they have been doing this business for years? Why take the risk and enter the fentanyl business, buying precursors from the Chinese, who are not very welcome in Turkey because they oppress their Uyghur brothers?’

12 conclusions about fentanyl

I talk to David Pere Martínez Oró and wonder how to sum up my investigation. The conclusions are often mutually exclusive, frequently based on assumptions.

1. The shipment of M30 tablets from Mexico to Europe by the Balkan mafia, which started my investigation, may have been, as Dr Robert Bunker put it, a ‘trial balloon’. This is a tactic for testing new routes and markets.
2. The brutal factional battles in the Sinaloa cartel could divide the organization and affect exports of narcotics to other continents. But it could also strengthen the Jalisco cartel, which has recently even had a presence in Spain.
3. Europe is a wonderful market for cocaine from Latin America. Fentanyl shipments could disrupt its high level of sales.
4. The Mexican cartels are already exporting know-how and people to Europe. They have already built methamphetamine laboratories here, so they can build fentanyl plants, but, according to many experts, not on a mass scale.
5. Dr Robert Bunker believes the fentanyl threat to Europe is ‘probably inevitable in the long run.’ In his opinion, fentanyl will start to appear increasingly frequently in shipments from Mexican cartels, and later in ‘laboratories set up closer to Europe, such as in Africa or in Europe itself.’
6. But for now, Chinese traffickers prefer to sell increasingly rare fentanyl precursors to the Mexican cartels to supply the still-receptive U.S. market. However, other producers should also be watched, such as India and Pakistan.
7. The Balkan mafias that are involved in retail sales of narcotics in Europe may sell fentanyl, but rather as subcontractors to, for example, the Calabrian ‘Ndraghetta.
8. If the Taliban manage to maintain the prohibition on opium production, the shortage of heroin will open up a market for fentanyl in Europe.
9. Heroin is currently on the market; its sales are controlled by the Turkish mafia, which is not particularly open to new business despite its cooperation with the Sinaloa cartel in other areas. On the other hand, the Mexicans are unlikely to interfere in the business interests of the Turks and Albanians.
10. So what will happen if there is no more heroin? According to many of my interviewees, it is highly likely that criminal groups will take an interest in the European opioid markets.
11. The example of Estonia shows that fentanyl has been circulating around Europe for decades. It led to a public health crisis in this Baltic State alone.
12. Data from Estonia and the U.S. shows that if criminal organizations want to lace heroin with a substance that increases its analgesic action, they are more likely to reach out for nitazenes and xylazine than for fentanyl.

The nitazenes era could last a long time

All these conclusions lead researcher David Pere Martínez Oró to the argument that ‘the era of fentanyl has come to an end’. While the data provided by the UNODC Early Warning Advisory (the so-called EWA, a project launched in 2013 for analysing and reporting on new psychoactive substances at global level) confirms this trend, 47 fentanyl analogues were reported worldwide in 2017, 56 in 2022, and only 16 last year.

‘The declining trend is a result of the international control process and the prohibition on the use of fentanyl and its precursors in China.’ emphasizes the Spanish researcher. ‘The problem is that the shortage of fentanyl on global markets has contributed to the growth in popularity of nitazenes.’

These are opioids that are many times stronger than heroin or even fentanyl. (Metonitazene is 50 times more potent than heroin, while etonitazene is 500 times more potent than heroin and 10 times more potent than fentanyl).

The first report regarding nitazenes appeared in 2019; five years later there were already 14 of their derivatives. This is especially visible in Europe, where the number of reported nitazenes has been greater than fentanyl analogues every year since the start of the pandemic.

They are already reaping a deadly toll in the Baltic States: last year, 48% of narcotics-related deaths in Estonia and 29% in Latvia were related to nitazenes. The presence of new opioids has also been reported in Sweden, Slovenia, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.

They were discovered on the British Isles during post mortems of 101 people who died of overdoses between June 2023 and February 2024. The British National Crime Agency reported that the majority, were counterfeit alprazolam pills laced with nitazenes.

David Pere Martínez Oró: ‘The era of nitazenes could last a long time, because their precursors are widely used legally; they are not banned in China in many cases. They may also be more attractive for European gangs, because they don’t require a complex synthesis process, like fentanyl.’

So why should the cartels give up on business with rich kids from Europe?

‘We’re playing football with a grenade,’ says Pierre Lapaque.

He is a former French policeman, regional director at UNODC for many years, and today first vice-president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

It’s difficult for us to arrange a meeting. First, he is on holiday with his five grandchildren. Then one of them becomes sick. And then my son becomes sick. So when we finally manage to meet, we also talk about the children. I ask him in passing: ‘What can we do to protect them?’

Lapaque: ‘I don’t know when and how bad it will be, but I know there is no way of avoiding it. My role as a father, grandfather, former policeman and member of the INCB is to press the alarm button.’

‘Why?’

‘Why not, when new synthetic drugs are appearing on the market each month?

Why would the cartels want to give up on diversifying their income? Why shouldn’t they send chemists to Europe, since you can produce new opiates in your kitchen at home?

Why should they give up on business with rich kids from Europe?

Why would a Balkan gangster or an Italian Mafioso turn down a business proposal from the Mexicans?

Why wouldn’t a Chinese laboratory worker steal a kilogram of precursors and send it to the black market?

If no government in the world is able to control all mailboxes and all consignments, how can Europe manage to do so?

If border control has never worked 100% anywhere, regardless of whether it’s about smuggling potatoes or narcotics, why would it work on the Old Continent?

After all, if all this is possible: new routes, new products, new customers, since Europe is the second largest producer of chemical precursors, why should it miss out on this?’

You won’t hear me say this is a lost war

‘We have to keep an eye on the youngest generation. That’s the main task. After all, people like me don’t take drugs. I’m too old for that. You’re 25, or possibly 30? Okay, take it, it’s your life. Two milligrams kill, don’t they? How can you be sure that your pharmacist is good enough to give you less than two milligrams if you buy a fentanyl pill on the black market? I wouldn’t risk my life like that. Do you want to kill yourself? I have no way of stopping you from taking drugs. That’s your business. Have fun.

But if you’re younger, it’s my job as a parent and grandparent, and our job as a society as a whole to look after you and give you the tools to keep you from going down that one-way street.

You see your child isn’t doing well at school. He spends a suspiciously long time at home. Or the other way around – he avoids home and when he comes home, he’s dejected? These are the orange lights that we need to see as soon as possible on many levels: the family, school and society levels. Before they turn red.

You won’t hear me say this is a lost war. However, we should be aware that it will happen. And we have to fight it together: at EU level, at the level of the Member States, at civil society level, at family level. If we prepare for the worst, we will be able to reduce the risk. We can’t focus only on the work of the law enforcement bodies. The whole of the environment is responsible: parents, teachers, doctors and the politicians who create anti-narcotics laws and policies.

I don’t believe we aren’t prepared in Europe. We are, but insufficiently. I work with many European anti-narcotics entities and medical experts. They know it will happen. Only a few deny it. When I meet government representatives, I tell them to be prepared to manage the risk.

I’m not saying that everyone will die, but I repeat that they cannot ignore the alarm bells. And they’re already ringing.

Fentanyl means playing Russian roulette. One bullet is going round in the moon clip. It hasn’t gone off in Europe yet. But tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow, we will have nitazenes, and we are talking about a few micrograms, which are far more lethal. They will invent even stronger substances in a month or perhaps a year. This is like playing with a pistol with a fully loaded clip.’

* The report was prepared as a result of the cooperation with Mexican fixer Miguel Angel Vega, whom I would like to thank for his advice and help on site.

Sources:

1. Afghanistan opium survey 2023, Research and Trend Analysis Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_opium_survey_2023.pdf
2. Cengiz, Emerging Cocaine Trafficking Routes Between Latin America and Middle East Fuel Drug Trade Expansion, 19/05/2022, https://www.hstoday.us/featured/column-emerging-cocaine-trafficking-routes-between-latin-america-and-middle-east-fuel-drug-trade-expansion/
3. Byrd, The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World, 08/06/2023, https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/06/talibans-successful-opium-ban-bad-afghans-and-world
4. Gul, Taliban face rare public uprising against their rule in northeastern Afghanistan, 05/05/2024, https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-face-rare-public-uprising-against-their-rule-in-northeastern-afghanistan/7598640.html
5. Taliban say order restored after Afghan opium poppy protests, Reuters, 07/05/2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-say-order-restored-after-afghan-opium-poppy-protests-2024-05-07/
6. J. Schindler, Afghanistan’s drug trade fuels extremism. Europe must act, 5/09/2022, https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/05/afghanistans-drug-trade-fuels-extremism-europe-must-act-view
7. Farah, Fourth Transnational Criminal Wave: New Extra Regional Actors and Shifting Markets Transform Latin America’s Illicit Economies and Transnational Organized Crime Alliances, 19/06/2024, https://icaie.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ICAIE-DF-Authored-Fourth-Transnational-Criminal-Wave_-New-Extra-Regional-Actors-and.pdf
8. Martínez-Oró, Ministerio de Sanidad de Espana, Fentanilo en España. Evidencias, percepciones y realidades, 2024, https://www.epistemesocial.org/wp-content/uploads/Fentanilo-en-Espana.-Evidencias-percepciones-y-realidades_web.pdf
9. EU Drug Market: New psychoactive substances — Distribution and supply in Europe: New opioids, EUDA, 2024, https://www.euda.europa.eu/sites/default/files/pdf/31840_en.pdf?43407
10. McLennan, C. Campbell, A. Newbery, Deadly opioids smuggled into UK in dog food, BBC, 22/04/2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68712372
11. Giraudon, ‘Nitazenes represent a growing threat to public health in Europe ‘, The Lancet Public Health, Volume 9, Issue 4, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(24)00024-0/fulltext

This article was prepared with the support of Journalismfund Europe. www.journalismfund.eu

The report was prepared with the support of the Foundation for German-Polish Cooperation