Pubdate: Sun, 08 Oct 2000
Source: Sunday Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: 2000 Independent Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Author: Geraldine Niland

FATAL HEROIN DOSE TRACED TO CONTAMINATED AFGHAN SOIL

Scientists who have been tracing the source of contamination of heroin 
which has killed 59 drug addicts in Ireland, Britain and Scotland believe 
the original source of the infection was likely to have been an infected 
animal in Afghanistan.

This infection was then passed into the soil and entered the crop. British 
scientists have identified a common soil bacterium, clostridium nouyi, as 
the likely source of the mystery killer. However, scientists warn that this 
may not be the only culprit. They point to the possibility of deliberate 
contamination of Europe's heroin by drug dealers through the `cutting' of 
heroin with contaminated soil, and they note that in at least one case 
anthrax formed part of the lethal cocktail.

Meanwhile, police investigations into the supply routes for the 
contaminated heroin have identified the main dealers in the suspect heroin 
to be a London-based Turkish family who have been trafficking for over 10 
years.

The extended family, involving four families, is headed by two brothers and 
a sister who are all in their 40s. One of the brothers has just completed a 
four-year prison sentence for drug-related offences in Britain.

British and Irish investigators believe they have plotted the drug supply 
route which links the deaths of the addicts in all three countries. The 
Sunday Independent has learned that through the London-based Turkish 
suppliers the suspect heroin was then shipped to a well-known African 
dealer based in Liverpool.

This African dealer and the main supplier had close connections with Derek 
Dunne, the Irish drug dealer and former soccer international who was shot 
in Amsterdam earlier this year. This dealer continues to distribute 
supplies through other associates of Dunne's, including a man known as 
Cyclops and at least one other south Dublin dealer.

The African dealer also supplied key dealers in Glasgow, where 30 heroin 
addicts contracted the illness, of whom 16 died. In Ireland eight heroin 
addicts have died of organ failure caused by the unidentified bacteria. All 
of the addicts injected the heroin into the muscle tissue as opposed to the 
veins. Warnings about the unidentified infection were first posted by a 
doctor in Norway in April of this year when a heroin addict died in Oslo.
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