Californians Won’t Get Their $200,000 Worth Of Ketamine Hidden In Gift Boxes
The seized shipment came all the way from Spain!
Various addresses in California won’t be receiving their mail packages after U.S. Custom and Border Protection (CBP) officers in Indianapolis seized $200,000 worth of ketamine hidden in gift boxes.
According to CBP, agents were conducting a routine inspection on September 10, 2022, when they decided to have a closer examination of two suspicious shipments that were coming from an international carrier in Madrid, Spain.
When the officers opened the packages, they discovered nine gift boxes containing shirts. After a closer look, a white powdery substance was observed hidden within the box flaps — it ended up testing positive for ketamine hydrochloride.
A total of 28 pounds of drugs were seized by the officers. The $200,000 worth of ketamine shipments were headed to different addresses in the state of California.
"CBP encounters narcotics and other contraband concealed in an ever-changing variety of items," said LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, Director of Field Operations-Chicago Field Office, in a press release. "Our officers remain vigilant often using their experience and intuition to discover these concealment methods to keep dangerous drugs out of our communities."
CBP officers consider ketamine as a schedule 3 controlled substance. This drug is utilized both in human and veterinary medicine to cause immobility, relief from pain, and sedation, and, according to the government agency, it is usually abused for its capacity to generate hallucinations.
Ketamine overdoses can generate nausea, muscle stiffening, unconsciousness, irregular heart rate, and respiratory failure that could lead to death.