There's a new drug even worse than fentanyl. Here's how it gets smuggled into Canada

The picture call in is grainy, but it's crystallization top what the mortal on the phone is trying to sell: illicit drugs, packaged and ready to be shipped to Canada. 

The seller, who goes by the name Kim, says he sells cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA and nitazenes, a powerful class of synthetic opioids most people have never heard of — but which can be up to 43 times more powerful than fentanyl.

"That is the game," the seller replies.

Worse than fentanyl: How smugglers get a new, deadly drug into Canada

Nitazenes, which have never been approved for medical use and are Schedule 1 drugs under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, have increasingly been turning up in drug busts across Canada.

Last year, two lab busts in Quebec alone may have accounted for more than a million counterfeit pharmaceutical oxycodone pills, which were actually protonitazepyne, a type of nitazene — or "analog" — according to the RCMP.  

"[North Americans] not only are the largest consumers of nitazines, but really have the biggest problem as it relates to the number of deaths," said Alex Krotulski, director of the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education in Pennsylvania, a toxicology lab that tests for nitazenes in Canada and the U.S. 

"This is really becoming an established drug class of novel synthetic opioids."

Nitazenes aren't nearly as popular as fentanyl and its analogs, but they offer a more potent high, making them appealing to drug dealers. Drug users might not even know they're consuming nitazenes, which can be laced into counterfeit pills.

The data received was incomplete — for example, Manitoba only provided statistics for 2024 — but indicates there have been nearly 400 deaths directly attributed to nitazenes or suspected to involve nitazenes since 2021. The true number of deaths is likely even higher. 

"I guarantee you because of the variability in toxicology testing, the variability in practices and variability in funding availability… [the number of deaths] is underreported," said Donna Papsun, a forensic toxicologist at Pennsylvania-based NMS Labs, which tests samples from across Canada. "If they're not looking for it, you can't find it."

Going by the available data, the most deaths were in Alberta, with 121 since 2021, followed by Quebec with 91 and B.C. With 81.

"We're worried that this will continue to rise as an ongoing threat," said Dan Anson, director general of intelligence and investigations for the Canada Border Services Agency.

One of the ways that nitazenes make their way into Canada is through sellers who advertise on social media networks by posting images of powders overlaid with contact information.

It often took mere minutes to receive a reply after responding to an online ad. Sellers were quick to share videos of their labs and products, even offering a step-by-step guide on how they would ship the drugs to Canada: first, by mislabelling the packages, then by concealing them inside PlayStation 5s, deflated basketballs, teapots and Chinese herbal packages. They would then be shipped via courier or the mail. 

Previous reporting on the topic in the U.K. Even had the drugs hidden in dog food and catering supplies.

"You'll see some pretty bizarre levels of creativity when it comes to importing illegal drugs," said Anson. "They're coming from online marketplaces ... And they're going to come through postal courier."

A Google spokesperson said it complies with valid legal removal requests from the public and authorities.

It became clear that sellers of nitazenes are spread across the globe, and aren't always who or where they purport to be online. 

On the e-commerce site TradeIndia, next to the heading "Etonitazene Powder," was a picture of a brown powder offered by a Chinese biotech company. On its website, the company states "nothing is above the human health."

It has an address listed in Shanghai that doesn't exist on Google Maps. But the company was quick to explain why the address didn't exist when asked in a secretly recorded phone call.

Over video, one seller who said they're from the U.K. Showed shipment records that he said were for drugs going to Grande Prairie, Alta.

Like any global trade, some nitazene sellers said they were struggling with the impact of U.S. Tariffs. 

A person representing a company called Umesh Enterprises that claimed to be based out of India said nitazenes are "coming from India.... Due to the issues going on between the U.S. And China with the tariffs," they said during a call. "There's been a lot of blockage from China so…. We go with India."

The speaker, like many of the sellers, acknowledged that importing nitazenes to Canada is illegal and knew how lethal these synthetic opioids can be. 

"[These sellers] don't care how many people they take down or how many families they hurt," said Toronto resident Dale Sutherland, whose 22-year-old son Corey died from an overdose involving a nitazene in 2022. 

"It's very frustrating…. We have to have more regulations, more strict penalties."

Brosseau pointed to the federal government's recently tabled Bill C-2, or Strong Borders Act, which will give Canada Post more authority to open mail and remove barriers to law enforcement inspecting mail during an investigation.

Critics of the proposed act say that it would curtail civil liberties. This month, a coalition of more than 300 civil society groups demanded the complete withdrawal of Bill C-2, warning it would expand government surveillance.

Do you have any tips on this story? Please contact Eric Szeto: eric.szeto@cbc.ca

---

---