A recovering fentanyl addict was able to buy the deadly drug fentanyl, online and have it delivered to him through the mail in Manitoba.
“If you know how to type, you know how to get it, it’s that easy. It gets shipped right to your house, it’s that accessible,” said Tyler, who has been clean for eight months.
Global News has agreed not to use his last name.
He said all it took for him to learn how to find suppliers online was for someone to quickly show him how to access the dark web, the encrypted part of the internet not reachable through popular search engines.
“It’s scary man, anyone can order it. A 14-year-old could order it,” he said.
The 23-year-old had overdosed twice before a third nearly claimed his life.
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“The last time they didn’t think I was going to make it. I got found laying beside a dumpster dead,” he said.
However, he was revived by first responders before deciding to seek treatment at Adult and Teen Challenge, a Winnipeg-based recovery centre.
A Global News investigation revealed opioid traffickers are using the Internet to find buyers and are shipping their product through the mail stream and popular courier services.
RELATED: How the dark web is used to sell illegal drugs like fentanyl
RCMP are using new strategies to try to crack down on this new drug trafficking model.
“We’re employing new, different kinds of technology to try and identify these packages, we are certainly taking kind of a global effort towards this problem,” Cpl. Scott Hanson with the Manitoba RCMP said.
Hanson is the head of the RCMP’s clandestine lab enforcement response team and a member of the federal serious organized crime unit.
WATCH: RCMP try and crackdown on fentnayl coming through mail
He said they’re also analyzing patterns in the mail to focus their resources on specific areas that will provide a better chance of stopping illegal opioid packages. But once they start making arrest, dealers could change tactics again.
“We’re not naive to think that those patterns won’t change, we’re alive to that fact. We understand that once we start having an enforcement success, the drug traffickers are going to shift,” Hanson said.
Now that Tyler is clean, he wants people to understand that while obtaining fentanyl is easy, the results can be deadly.
RELATED: Mom warns of dangers of fentanyl by posting picture of dying son on Facebook
“You can be doing it one day and be completely fine and all of the sudden, next day, you pick up a new batch and you can just die on the spot. You OD so fast you don’t even know what’s going on. It sucks the soul out of you. You have no personality, nothing, you don’t care about nothing,” he said.
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