What is black cocaine?

For the first time in Bangladesh, the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) has found black cocaine in Bangladesh. While details about the drug's spread in Bangladesh is still being investigated, its seizure has put law enforcement agencies on alert.

Here is what we know about the drug:

As law enforcement agencies ramp up their efforts in catching drug traffickers, the criminals are also trying to find new ways of bringing drugs into the country. The black cocaine is a result of the drug traffickers ramping up their efforts to avoid being caught by law enforcers. 

According to a report by the Canadian Drug Enforcement Administration, black cocaine is a mixture of cocaine base and/or cocaine hydrochloride with other substances carefully chosen to specifically hide the physical characteristics of the cocaine and interfere with its detection.

Once the black cocaine reaches its destination, it must then be treated chemically in order to extract the cocaine from the mixture.

Several seizures of black cocaine have been made around the world, which include: religious icons made of black cocaine , black cocaine as a dark solid hidden in items such as a hammock, black cocaine as a powder in toner cartridges, as an industrial dye, and as an ingredient in plastic materials.

History of black cocaine

While there is no documented history about the origin of the black cocaine, it is said that Black Cocaine was invented in the mid-1980s by the army of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The dictator allegedly ordered the establishment of a clandestine cocaine laboratory in Chile to produce a drug which could not be detected by law enforcement agencies and be smuggled into the United States and Europe.

The seizure in Bangladesh

Near the end of last year, the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) raided the house of Abu Bakkar alias Rubel in Bhulbaria village after his name came up as a drug dealer in a yaba investigation.

The law enforcers failed to catch him but ended up seizing 15 grams of ice, 12 grams of powdered yaba, one gram of cocaine, and 44 pieces of an unknown substance, each one-inch in length, that resembled the graphite used as pencil lead.

Following weeks-long forensic tests, researchers this Wednesday (31 January) identified the substances, weighing 8 grams in total, as "black cocaine", said Dulal Krishna Saha Chief Chemical Examiner of the Central chemical laboratory of the DNC. 

While common in Mexico and North American countries, this is the first time law enforcers seized black cocaine in Bangladesh.

"Cocaine is usually consumed in powdered form. It can't be taken as a solid object. So, the traffickers make it into small pieces of charcoal-like objects which could later be smashed into powder. They do this with certain chemical substances," Shamim Hossain, deputy director of DNC Faridpur region told The Business Standard.