You may have heard a couple weeks ago that a 29-year-old Victoria Koleski of Farmingdale, New Jersey and 34-year-old Brian Parker of Long Island City were arrested for conspiracy to sell designer drugs, that drug being Fentanyl. For those of you that don’t know what Fentanyl is, it’s an extreme opiate that is made by pharmaceutical companies and administered by doctors for the sole purpose of helping those in enduring, unbearable pain. It can be taken in pill form, as a patch or a nasal spray. What makes Fentanyl unlike any other drug we have every seen is its sheer potency- One pure gram of Fentanyl is equivalent to about 100g of ‘high quality’ Heroin. It is also 50-100 times stronger than morphine depending on the purity. When drug-dealers came across Fentanyl a couple of years ago- they ran into a problem. It was killing all of their clientele. Their answer to this conundrum? Cut the Fentanyl with heroin to reduce potency and therefore the chance of overdose. There is another thing that is particularly bad about this very contemporary drug, if one were so inclined, it is simple to create knock-off Fentanyl. It is actually exceedingly easy compared to other lab-generated drugs. Even though the government and FDA say that Fentanyl is extremely regulated- the truth is the main components to synthesize it are shockingly easy to obtain. This is resulting in many dealers like Parker and Koleski getting the main ingredients, building a modest operation and flooding the market with homemade Fentanyl that almost captures the potency of their pharmaceutical counterparts. The only difference between Parker/Koleski’s operation and other Fentanyl underground manufacturers was the sheer scale of their operation. Their Fentanyl lab was also set up in a boss-status high rise in Long Island City, which influenced the New York Post to so eloquently exclaim “They put the ‘high’ in high-rise.”
Mr. Parker’s Long Island City High Rise:
Now I know a lot of you are reading this article and thinking I’m exaggerating on how easy it is to make. You’re thinking “Lex this is a pharmaceutically concocted opiate -I’m sure it takes Breaking Bad-like chemistry knowledge to pull off something like creating it.” Actually, no it’s a lot simpler than that and I’m going to break it down because lucky for you, I love researching stuff! It takes 2 core chemical compounds to produce Fentanyl. The first one is N-Phenethyl-4-piperidinone (otherwise called NPP). Now that NPP is being used as an intermediary chemical in the manufacturing of Fentanyl, the government was smart enough to put it on the list of controlled chemicals and the possession and sale of this compound is now restricted. This is all well and good except that China makes loads of NPP and all it takes is a run-of-the-mill delivery to get it over to the states… lol. Now the second core compound used to synthesize Fentanyl is ANPP. This is also a controlled chemical, and is also easy to get shipped in by places like China. But say I’m a lazy drug dealer- and reaching out to China really isn’t my thing- I can always buy ANPP online from companies like Caymen Chemical:
Now yes, that red block does say restricted product, which when clicked on gives the following disclaimer: “Restricted products are controlled substances that require special processing and license verification before shipping. Domestic sales require the buyer to have either a current U.S. DEA Analytical or Researcher Controlled Substance Registration. International sales require the buyer to obtain either an import license or a Letter of No Objection from their government. WARNING: These products are for research only—not for human or veterinary or therapeutic use.” Considering how much of a complete joke our medical system is, I wonder how hard it really is to be issued (or find someone who can be issued) an import license or a Letter of No Objection from the government (especially if like many drug dealers, you’re resourceful and have connections). It should also be noted that as of now, I couldn’t find any other uses for 4-ANPP other then as a precursor to Fentanyl. So, just know wherever it ends up, Caymen Chemical is well aware what it’s going to be used to synthesize. Great, now we know where to get 4-ANPP and NPP but how dow we come up with the final product? First comes the Synthesis of NPP. which is essentially just a purification process to help get ANPP. This can be done by adding aniline and molecular sieves to NPP. Molecular Sieves are essentially filters with pores that are too little for certain molecules to fit through and other pores large enough to let other molecules pass.Mix for 24 hours at room temperature with a magnetic stirrer and you officially have synthesized NPP. Once the reaction from the previous step is completed, it will convert part of the solution to ANPP extract when methanol is added. After Adding NACL to the ANPP and furthering the filtering of the solution, you will be able to separate the liquid from the solid – This is the ANPP hydrochloride. Adding Concentrated HCl to the ANPP hydrochloride will result in two separate components- Pyridine and Fentanyl in the form of hydrochloride salts. The nonpolar Fentanyl is easy to distill from the rest of the solution. You have just created the strongest opiate known to man.