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Tag: drug sales

  • Cher's Houseguest Arrested For Allegedly Selling Illicit Fentanyl

    Cher's Houseguest Arrested For Allegedly Selling Illicit Fentanyl

    Cher was on tour in Australia at the time of the arrest.

    Police in Los Angeles descended on the home of Oscar-winning entertainer Cher to arrest a houseguest who was allegedly involved in the sale of fentanyl that resulted in an overdose death.

    Law enforcement executed a search warrant at Cher’s Malibu home on September 27 and arrested 23-year-old Donovan Ruiz whom officials said was living at the residence.  

    A spokesperson for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said that Ruiz was arrested for a “narcotics overdose that occurred within the last two weeks.” Cher was on tour in Australia at the time of the arrest.

    Some media sources have alleged that Ruiz is the son of Cher’s longtime assistant, though this has yet to be verified by police.

    What is known, according to a press release from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, is that law enforcement from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Interagency Pharmaceutical Crimes Unit had been conducting a narcotics investigation into Ruiz for a period of two weeks prior to the arrest, and that Ruiz allegedly sold fentanyl to “many users in Ventura County,” including a Thousand Oaks resident who later died from an overdose in mid-September. 

    As numerous media sources reported, police served a search warrant at Cher’s home in the afternoon of the 25th. Witnesses saw several patrol cars and first responder vehicles at the residence, which initially prompted concerns about the singer’s health.

    The Blast reported that Ventura County had contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to inform them of their intent to conduct a search on the premises in regard to a drug-related offense. 

    Detectives reportedly seized evidence that was allegedly linked to Ruiz and sales of an “illegal controlled substance.” Ruiz was subsequently arrested and charged with the sale of such a substance, but again, according to The Blast, additional charges related to the overdose could be expected.

    Ruiz’s bond was set at $500,000, and it remained undetermined if he would make bail prior to his arraignment in Ventura County Superior Court at 1:30 p.m. on October 1. The Blast cited sources that said that Ruiz was a “good person” who would never “sell drugs that would kill someone.”

    At the time of the incident, Cher was slated to perform at shows in Brisbane, Australia.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Thrift Store Workers Uncover Massive Pot "Donation"

    Thrift Store Workers Uncover Massive Pot "Donation"

    The unusual donation was worth a few thousand dollars, according to police.

    Employees at a Florida thrift store found much more than the usual faded blouses and old shoes when they were sorting through donations this week and found five pounds of marijuana outside the store’s donation box. 

    According to Fox 13, employees at Pines Thrift Store in Sarasota found a large tote outside the donation box, where items for the store can be left after hours.

    Initially, employees ignored the tote, but when they opened it on Thursday they found a taped paper bag containing four plastic bags.

    When they cut into a bag it became clear what was inside: 2,100 grams of vacuum-sealed marijuana, according to 7 News Miami. That’s when they decided to call the police. 

    The unusual donation left area residents and store employees wondering about the motives of whoever left the cannabis behind. 

    “Somebody probably had a change of heart or something and wanted to turn it in, but didn’t want to get themselves in trouble,” said Bles Mclean, who was interviewed about the find. “So they just probably thought they were doing a good deed in donating it. I guess. I don’t know.”

    Mclean speculated that it could have been a joke gone wrong.

    “Maybe someone is being vindictive,” she said. “It doesn’t sound like a prank. I wouldn’t know, but it’s very shocking.”

    If it were a prank, it would be an expensive one. The drugs have a street value of a few thousand dollars. No arrests have been made, and no one knows where the drugs might have come from or how they came to be in the donation box. 

    “Either someone lost track of a really big package or someone didn’t calculate the numbers right or something,” Mclean said. “How it got in the donation box is definitely baffling.”

    Finding the drugs at the thrift store, which is part of The Pine Retirement Community, was jarring for some residents. 

    “That’s pretty shocking to hear about, to know it was in the donation box,” Jacueline Aguilera said. 

    Police have requested surveillance video from the store and from neighboring businesses, hoping that that might help them identify the person who left the tote outside the donation box.  

    Police are also doing testing on the drugs to try to identify where they may have come from, according to ABC News. 

    Although Florida does have a medical marijuana program, recreational use of cannabis is illegal under state law. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Opioid Regulations Pushing Those In Need To The Dark Web

    Opioid Regulations Pushing Those In Need To The Dark Web

    Researchers found that since the prescription opioid crackdown began, dark web sales for the targeted medications have steadily increased.

    Rules meant to crack down on the use of opioids have instead turned some individuals to the black market, a new study has found.

    UPI reports that in 2014, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) put new regulations on hydrocodone (e.g. Vicodin), making it more difficult to prescribe and taking away automatic refill options.

    From mid-2013 to mid-2015, the number of prescriptions decreased greatly. 

    However, some individuals had found another way to access the medications: the internet. Research published in the journal BMJ revealed that since the new regulations were put in place, more people are buying opioids online without a prescription, using “software-encrypted online portals that permit illegal sales and elude regulators.”

    Researchers found that in the four years since 2014, opioid sales on the dark web have increased by about 4% annually. 

    “This [DEA] action did have the hoped-for effect of reducing the number of prescriptions issued for these products,” study author Judith Aldridge, a professor of criminology at the University of Manchester in England, told UPI. “[But] our team found that sales on the so-called ‘dark net’ of opioid prescription medications increased following the DEA’s initiative.”

    Aldridge also says it was beyond the one type of medication. 

    “And this increase was not just observed for medications containing hydrocodone,” she said. “We also saw increased dark-net sales for products containing much stronger opioids, like oxycodone (OxyContin) and fentanyl.”

    A team of investigators used “web crawler” software to look in-depth at 31 “cryptomarkets” that operated before and after the new regulations. In doing so, they found minimal changes to the sales of sedatives, steroids, stimulants or illegal opioids (ones that are not prescribed by medical professionals).

    On the other hand, investigators found that dark web sales of prescription opioids had increased in overall sales in 2016, making up about 14% of the sales. They also found that of those, more purchases were made for fentanyl than hydrocodone. In 2014, fentanyl had been the least popular dark web prescription opioid, but in 2016 it was the second most popular.

    According to researchers, one difficulty with dark web sales is that they are more complicated to monitor. 

    “Solutions here are not simple,” Aldridge said. “However, we know very well that our results were entirely predictable. Solutions must combine cutting supply and tackling demand at the same time. This requires making prevention and treatment grounded in good science available for all.”

    View the original article at thefix.com