(WSVN) - When you think of a drug dealer, you think of a person on a street corner or behind a building slipping you a bag of drugs. But today you can order the drugs online, and they will deliver them to your front door. Don’t believe it? It’s why we sent investigative reporter Patrick Fraser out to check out this “Dangerous Delivery.”
Go to Craigslist, the online website where you can buy just about anything you can imagine.
Isaac Lazar: “It’s a great site. Yeah, it is, and people buy and sell things all the time. It is a great avenue to make a little money.”
But when Isaac says you can buy anything on Craigslist, he didn’t expect to see this for sale.
Isaac Lazar: “It started with oxycodone, Percocet, valium, Vicodin, and we start getting into heavier drugs: cocaine, LSD, the list just kept going and going.”
That’s right. On the South Florida Craigslist we found all those powerful, illegal drugs for sale. Drugs the dealer will deliver to your door.
Isaac Lazar: “Somebody, please. People are dying out there, and it is delivered to your front door. It’s crazy.”
It surprised Isaac. It might surprise you.
But it doesn’t surprise Miami-Dade’s narcotics detectives.
Miami-Dade Police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta: “As a matter of fact, they have confirmed they have opened several investigations regarding the sale of narcotics through the internet.”
We wanted to talk to some of the people claiming to sell drugs on Craigslist. I contacted North Bay Village Police to let them know we weren’t going to buy drugs. We wanted to see who’d show up, and if they could deliver.
We contacted them. Each dealer wanted either money orders wired to them or Bitcoins. No cash. And they wanted the money in their possession before the meeting took place.
Of course, we said no. Maybe they were scammers trying to steal from people who would never report it to the police. Maybe the drug dealers thought we were saps.
We will never know, and maybe that’s a good thing.
Detective Alvaro Zabaleta: “You are inviting someone that is willing to do, or is ready to do, an illegal transaction, to come to your house. How do you know they are not going to put a gun in your face?”
Another thing for sale on Craigslist: prescriptions for drugs like oxycodone. Get caught buying those fake prescriptions and you go to jail.
Police are monitoring Craigslist. They may also be posting their own ads to nab drug buyers.
Detective Alvaro Zabaleta: “Next thing you know, who they are purchasing from is an undercover detective. And now they go to jail, and their answer is, ‘I didn’t know.'”
In many cases, the buyers are adults. Isaac worries about teens buying, thinking it’s cool.
Isaac Lazar: “You are the parent, a guy pulled up in the car, walks to your door, walks back to his car and leaves. What do you think that guy just did? He delivered your teenage son some heroin right to your front door.”
If you think the drugs are safe, think again.
Detective Alvaro Zabaleta: “You don’t know if you are getting rat poison. You don’t know what kind of drugs they are mixing into this stuff, if once you consume, it is going to become fatal.”
But despite the dangers, from the number of ads, it’s clear business is booming.
Isaac Lazar: “It is evolving where you don’t need to leave your house to get drugs. They come to you.”
A convenient delivery? Maybe. A dangerous delivery? Definitely.
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