HANDHELD FTIR / RAMAN SCANNERS - this is how customs agencies worldwide detect if drugs are in your package without even opening it

A little something I found while looking for something else...

Ever wonder how customs does so much interdiction on drug packages from foreign countries? And how do they test the substances quickly enough to deliver the package on time?

Here is at least one of the answers: the handheld FTIR / Raman scanner

This particular one (Geminiā„¢) is made by ThermoFisher Scientific, I think. It is reportedly in use by US Customs, customs agencies in other countries, FBI, ATF, TSA, US State Dept, and various police & military units around the world. "8,500+ units deployed."

It detects illegal drugs, known research chemicals, drug precursors (even rare ones), and explosives with Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) OR Raman spectroscopy.

Scans take only seconds to perform. In some cases, they don't even need to open the package, I'm guessing because there are tiny amounts of drug molecules unavoidably covering the outside of the container. (EDIT: Actually, I guessed wrong. There has to be a visual line of sight (and color) to the product, but it will detect through clear plastic & glass!) The unit is small (handheld) and checks the tiniest of particles on your package against a whole library of spectra for matches. If it matches one of the known substances in the library, they pull the pack and presumably prepare a controlled delivery. This is very likely used most often in conjunction with package profiling.

Interesting pages from the PDF about the use of this hand held scanner with real world enforcement examples:

What counter-measures can be used? I don't know. Maybe putting a bunch of vitamin C powder all over the outer vac seal would be enough make the scanner think there is only Vitamin C in the package. Maybe not. Definitely not if vitamin C is not in their FTIR or Raman spectra libraries. Activated carbon around packaging? Who knows? ACTUAL ANSWER: visual barriers. You're pretty much fucked if they open the pack and the spectra is in their db unless your decoy is world-class.

EDIT: The most important comments below:


Comments


[25 Points] Vendor_BBMC:

They usually make a tiny hole and stick it INSIDE your package before it has a sniff. Anything could be on the outside.

This technology was well known even in the 1980s when I was a chemistry undergraduate (I remember struggling with the mathematics of "fourier transform". We also had to derive Heisenberg's uncertainty principle from first principles. These are the two hardest bits of maths (or "math") a chemistry undergrad has to know https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

with this much P2P precursor, I'm not sure why there is still so little methamphetamine in Europe...

P2P is more often used to make amphetamine (speed) in Europe. It gets stopped a lot because "phenylacetone" stinks. Its used to make racemic methgamphetamine, known as "crank" or "biker meth", which is always a powder.

"Crystal meth" is always made by the reduction of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, quite expensive chemicals which are restricted, watched, and hard to source in quantity. Pseudoephedrine on the black market is worth more than the $60 some Americans pay for a gram of "crystal" meth.

On average, I use 2.1g of pseudoephedrine to make a finished, perfect gram of real, uncut crystal meth. (It takes 48 hours of solid work, and another 3 days where I both work and sleep).

If it's 50% strength crank, how does it make "shards"? By adding a compound called MSM, which forms big crystals, doesn't have much taste, melts, and makes (quite smokey) smoke at lower temperatures than methamphetamine hydrochloride. Essentially, the crank powder is glued together into a lump.

GC/MS tests would show it as 50% methamphetamine, but its really only quarter strength. D meth gets you high. L meth unblocks your sinuses.

Methamphetamine is a shockingly potent drug, some meth users get to try it. I'm quite the oddball for making and selling it, I don't think I've ever sold anything lower than 97% D-meth. Its the most-expensive ice on the darknet, but I'm sure I'm the lowest-earning meth vendor. I nearly earned enough to buy a second-hand car once, then Sheepmarketplace stole it.

That's why I reacted so badly.

Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) crunching around in the envelope with your drugs would do nothing. Its a mass spectrometer, not a dog. Even if vitimin C was very volatile and smelly, it wouldn't run away with its tail between its legs.

It would just give a peak at 176.12g /mole, and the spectrum of (5R)-[(1S)-1,2-Dihydroxyethyl]-3,4-dihydroxyfuran-2(5H)-one (aka vitamin C) AS WELL AS the illegal drug.

If you receive an international pack of drugs with a small hole made in it, this detector was probably used to "sniff" it. I know it sounds like a scary step=forward in the war on drugs, but its been in use for a long time, and its not all that.

When customs staff take a swap of somebody's suitcase, that machine they stick it in to test it is one of these. It gives a rough yes or no answer.


[18 Points] 2ugly:

This goes to show how operations should include a clean room, operations should be isolated, controlled, and maintained quality control at all stages. Most importantly, don't leave fingerprints on the packages... super.


[12 Points] 2cbking:

From reading alot of the comments below, I feel it is necessary to make a few things very clear. First, this is not anything new, not by a long shot. Handheld spectroscopy is not even very new. Its actually a pretty basic system. I am making my own Raman spectrometer. It wont be handheld (yet) but anyone sufficiently motivated and with a few thousand to spare can make one. Anyway, the important thing to know is that the sample being tested still has to be visable. It can be in a glass vial, or a clear baggy, but it still has to be visable. Something the wavelength being used can travel through unhindred (1064nm Raman is the best because it doesnt cause flourecense with certain molecules which can make it hard to differentiate the substance being tested), So it can easily be used to look through the clear end of a blister pack to see what kind of pills are on the inside. It can even use something called raster orbital scanning to essential take a measurement of your sample in a grid pattern. This allows it to determin things like how much acetominophen is in the tablet and how much oxycodone is. So it can be used both for testing purity and quantifacation of substance amt in a sample. Check out http://oceanoptics.com/application-note-raman-pharmaceuticals/ for more information that. What this means is that you shouldnt go crazy with fear of this new technology. The point at which this is used would be after they already have opened your package and found something to test. Its more of a confirmation tool (or more accurately a prelimenary tool for them to see if the substance is something of interest or if they were over zealous in investigating a package that was entirely legal. I doubt it is being used for exterior scanning of a package to determine if it is even suspicious in the first place. They have to have something to point the laser at, and some random particles on the outside of a package doesnt cut it (particularly if you cant even see them). So since you should already be extremely careful to not have any loose drugs in your package that would draw attention. No powder left on the outside (including the inside above the ziplock) of a baggie or your stealth. You should be pretty safe. But if they see something to test, your screwed. BUt this was already a given, these devices should not cause any more concern then you already should have to be clean and careful in packaging your drugs


[7 Points] TheTriangleTrial:

Vendors need to step up their game holy shit....


[6 Points] None:

[deleted]


[6 Points] boofk:

This is what I predicted will eventually would stop people sending drugs in the mail. Right now every package isn't being subjected to this, but as the technology gets better and cheaper I wouldn't be surprised if all mail gets run through something like this.


[5 Points] MDMangel:

Go-Go gadget assholes!!


[1 Points] None:

Dip your package in wax, shit works


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[2 Points] kiltromon:

Im guessing LSD/nbome tabs are undetectable even with this?


[2 Points] stickykitty1:

Any idea how much these units cost? Would be great to get our hansds on one for testing sensitivity. I use a clean room and wash/sterilize internal layers, latex gloves etc., but can I say 100% that one or two molecules of cbd don't end up on outside of box? I try like fuck to make it not happen, but if you can't see it... Haven't lost a pack yet( knocks on head), but I only ship domestic, and this makes me glad about that, despite many inquiries for international shipping. Do we know for a fact that USPS doesn't use them? Also, I'd long been under the impression that dogs were more effective then electronic detection. Not true? Maybe just cheaper and available. OP thanks for posting this valuable info.!


[2 Points] GreatSince86:

You know I've been telling everyone about dogs and this for ages. But everyone seems to think a triple vacuum seal does shit. It may keep the smell from humans, but not devices like this. Dogs and machines like this do detect the molecules. So unless you are doing everything in a clean room, it's not perfect. Then it's still technically not because molecules still permeate through barriers. Literally the only thing that would prevent this would be if you had a barrier of nanobots rearranging the molecular structures of substances as they permeated or just stopped them from doing so altogether.


[1 Points] avocado34:

This is scary. Makes me nervous to buy from GG now


[1 Points] sullyrb:

jesus this is stupid.


[1 Points] Superdankmaster:

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[1 Points] None:

Thats so fucked up!


[1 Points] Trappy_Pandora:

I thought you were going to talk about how to card instant noodles, now I'm sad.


[0 Points] Article_extract:

i dont understan the niggas who makin this tech man how you can be so smart to design complicated mathematical algorithms in a computer sim to fuckin detect different traces of chems n shit yet u so stupid you dumbass don't think that peopl will be buyin this shit up from the government cheese block n shit like yo dumbass knows math yet yo dumbass dont know you fucking shit up for everybody, fuck all these tech startups that use their research for some bullshit ass like imagine I spent 12 hours a day researching the most effective way to rape a kids butt u would be like "nigga the fuck is wrong with u1?!????!!!?"

like, that's what these niggas is, all these busta asses studying how to make bombs and weapons and guns and police scanners and drones and viruses and shit they fucked up in their shit cuase mama didn suck they dick or some weird ass shit man, fuck, all cause they got a dick the size a tic tac, tell these bustas a Satan Go Home cause they extra fucked up

mayne