The dealer, a 30-year-old from Nigeria, was apprehended by plainclothes police officers while he waited for customers in a bar. Yellow heroin is a particularly deadly form of the drug, cut with another dangerous opioid, and was responsible for a string of overdoses several years ago.
23 June 2023
By Carlo Mion
MESTRE. Yellow heroin has returned to Mestre, the deadly drug that killed over twenty people by overdose in 2017-18. It was seized by local police from a known drug dealer who was arrested Tuesday afternoon on via Piave at the corner of via Fiume. The agents of Commissioner Gianni Franzoi found over ten doses of heroin and cocaine in the dealer’s possession.
Most of it was yellow heroin. (Note: so-called “yellow” heroin is cut with methorphan, an opioid used in the cough syrup dextromethorphan and in levomethorphan, an opioid analgesic that is five times stronger than morphine. The addition of this opioid increases the effects and dangers of heroin use). The drug had vanished for several years, at least in the Mestre market, and is now reappearing. The biggest danger is always for those who use it, some of whom come from out of town and are not aware of the danger that comes with the drug’s high purity and the addition of a pharmaceutical that amplifies the effects.
The local police agents began their operation on Tuesday afternoon, when they noticed that the drug dealer had entered the La Queva Bar and took a seat. It was clear to the agents that he was waiting for his clients to call, hoping to pass unobserved, blending in with the others present in the bar. In fact, at that time there were about twenty patrons inside.
Soon afterwards plainclothes police officers also entered the bar. As they made their way towards the drug dealer, he immediately figured out that they were looking for him. He tried to run away, pushing and knocking over the clients in the bar and then reaching the street. But here his pursuers stopped him before he managed to throw away the drugs he was carrying. The officers found the doses of heroin and cocaine hidden in two small bags in his pocket.
The foreigner was arrested for drug dealing and brought to the Tronchetto office, where he spent two nights in a security cell awaiting the hearing to validate the arrest. Yesterday morning he appeared before the judge, who validated the arrest and ordered that he may not set foot in Veneto again pending the trial, which is scheduled for July 19. This is the drug dealer’s fifth arrest between Mestre and Padua, again for selling drugs.
-Source: La Nuova di Venezia e Mestre
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