A little something I found while looking for something else...
Ever wonder how customs does so much interdiction on drug packages from foreign countries? And how do they test the substances quickly enough to deliver the package on time?
Here is at least one of the answers: the handheld FTIR / Raman scanner
This particular one (Geminiā¢) is made by ThermoFisher Scientific, I think. It is reportedly in use by US Customs, customs agencies in other countries, FBI, ATF, TSA, US State Dept, and various police & military units around the world. "8,500+ units deployed."
It detects illegal drugs, known research chemicals, drug precursors (even rare ones), and explosives with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) OR Raman spectroscopy.
Scans take only seconds to perform. In some cases, they don't even need to open the package, I'm guessing because there are tiny amounts of drug molecules unavoidably covering the outside of the container. (EDIT: Actually, I guessed wrong. There has to be a visual line of sight (and color) to the product, but it will detect through clear plastic & glass!) The unit is small (handheld) and checks the tiniest of particles on your package against a whole library of spectra for matches. If it matches one of the known substances in the library, they pull the pack and presumably prepare a controlled delivery. This is very likely used most often in conjunction with package profiling.
Interesting pages from the PDF about the use of this hand held scanner with real world enforcement examples:
- 4. List of some government agencies known to use these scanners
- 5. a timeline of the scanners this company has developed
- 6. cocaine detected without opening the bottle or plastic bag which contains it!
- 7. Raman & FTIR Spectroscopy technique slide
- 8. Raman & FTIR Spectroscopy Scanner info slide
- 9. Some cannabinoid RC Raman spectra they have (AM-2201, MAM-2201, & EAM-2201)
- 18. Some P2P & MDP2P precursors Raman spectra they have (APAAN, APAAN (aq.), & MDP2P methyl glycidate)
- 19. Dutch Police APAAN (P2P precursor) 10,000kg seizure & bust using this scanner - with this much P2P precursor, I'm not sure why there is still so little methamphetamine in Europe...
- 20. Some synthetic cathinones (4-FMC, 3,4-DMEC, 4-MMC, MDPV, Pentedrone) FTIR spectra and EMCDDA customs seizure data 2007-2013 as total % (more and more cathinones from 2011-2013)
- 21. Synthetic Cannabinoids (JWH-018, PB-22, BB-22, AB-PINACA, EAM-2201, AM-2201) Raman spectra
- 23. French Customs seizes Methylone, MDPV, etc in Chinese RC packages
- 28. NZ customs detects cocaine through plastic & NL package of heroin
What counter-measures can be used? I don't know. Maybe putting a bunch of vitamin C powder all over the outer vac seal would be enough make the scanner think there is only Vitamin C in the package. Maybe not. Definitely not if vitamin C is not in their FTIR or Raman spectra libraries. Activated carbon around packaging? Who knows? ACTUAL ANSWER: visual barriers. You're pretty much fucked if they open the pack and the spectra is in their db unless your decoy is world-class.
EDIT: The most important comments below:
They usually make a tiny hole and stick it INSIDE your package before it has a sniff. Anything could be on the outside.
This technology was well known even in the 1980s when I was a chemistry undergraduate (I remember struggling with the mathematics of "fourier transform". We also had to derive Heisenberg's uncertainty principle from first principles. These are the two hardest bits of maths (or "math") a chemistry undergrad has to know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle
P2P is more often used to make amphetamine (speed) in Europe. It gets stopped a lot because "phenylacetone" stinks. Its used to make racemic methgamphetamine, known as "crank" or "biker meth", which is always a powder.
"Crystal meth" is always made by the reduction of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, quite expensive chemicals which are restricted, watched, and hard to source in quantity. Pseudoephedrine on the black market is worth more than the $60 some Americans pay for a gram of "crystal" meth.
On average, I use 2.1g of pseudoephedrine to make a finished, perfect gram of real, uncut crystal meth. (It takes 48 hours of solid work, and another 3 days where I both work and sleep).
If it's 50% strength crank, how does it make "shards"? By adding a compound called MSM, which forms big crystals, doesn't have much taste, melts, and makes (quite smokey) smoke at lower temperatures than methamphetamine hydrochloride. Essentially, the crank powder is glued together into a lump.
GC/MS tests would show it as 50% methamphetamine, but its really only quarter strength. D meth gets you high. L meth unblocks your sinuses.
Methamphetamine is a shockingly potent drug, some meth users get to try it. I'm quite the oddball for making and selling it, I don't think I've ever sold anything lower than 97% D-meth. Its the most-expensive ice on the darknet, but I'm sure I'm the lowest-earning meth vendor. I nearly earned enough to buy a second-hand car once, then Sheepmarketplace stole it.
That's why I reacted so badly.
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) crunching around in the envelope with your drugs would do nothing. Its a mass spectrometer, not a dog. Even if vitimin C was very volatile and smelly, it wouldn't run away with its tail between its legs.
It would just give a peak at 176.12g /mole, and the spectrum of (5R)-[(1S)-1,2-Dihydroxyethyl]-3,4-dihydroxyfuran-2(5H)-one (aka vitamin C) AS WELL AS the illegal drug.
If you receive an international pack of drugs with a small hole made in it, this detector was probably used to "sniff" it. I know it sounds like a scary step=forward in the war on drugs, but its been in use for a long time, and its not all that.
When customs staff take a swap of somebody's suitcase, that machine they stick it in to test it is one of these. It gives a rough yes or no answer.