9 Investigates

9 Investigates: Deadly drugs smuggled into Central Florida

SOUTH FLORIDA — 9 Investigative reporter Daralene Jones got access to the federal facility that has agents working to stop deadly drugs from getting onto the streets across Florida.

For months, Jones has exposed how drugs like heroin and fentanyl are killing hundreds of people in Central Florida. Federal investigators told Eyewitness News they believe the drugs are being made in China.

Jones visited the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, inside a nondescript building in South Florida, where investigators are working to keep these drugs off the streets.

Immediately upon walking into the facility, Jones could smell narcotics and spotted a table full of large piles of pink pills that looked like candy. Investigators believe it's yet another box of Ecstasy drug dealers are trying to sneak inside the country through the U.S. Postal Service. A test kit on-site confirmed the pink pills are, in fact, Ecstasy.

“From the time we open the door at 8 in the morning, we're finding drugs, until the time we shut down at night," said Phil Spataro, the supervisor in charge of the facility.

Spactaro’s inspectors have caught synthetic drugs, like Ecstasy, Molly, Flakka: and opioids, like heroin and fentanyl. While a majority of the shipments include only a delivery address, inspectors said they do know the shipments are coming in from China. Spataro said dealers from China are shipping so much illegal drugs, the agency now has several conveyor belts at the facility dedicated to receiving and inspecting mail from China.

“We started seeing shipments containing the crystals, powders, liquid, which we hadn't seen before. A lot of this stuff is manifested as buttons and toys,” Spataro said. “We do find some going to Orlando, Jacksonville.”

Eyewitness News was there as inspectors closely watched the screening machine used to help detect drugs hidden in packages. One of the boxes that caught his attention was unassuming, filled with neon hats and other merchandise, but he couldn't quite see the items through the shipping box because the lid was stuffed with cocaine.

Photos: Drugs smuggled into Central Florida

Once the potential drugs are tested at the facility, they are held inside a cage, while inspectors wait for final test results from a lab in Savannah, Georgia. What the inspectors don't catch, slips through the cracks, and ends up on the streets. Sometimes even if federal investigators try to track who’s planning to receive the package, investigators said it’s tough because the packages are sent to bogus addresses, even abandoned homes.

Federal law enforcement agents told Eyewitness News they believe the drugs are distributed to dealers across Florida, even Georgia and Tennessee. Inspectors said shipments from China started to increase in October of last year.

One recovering heroin addict told Jones the drug is called "China White" on the streets.

"It's like the purest form of heroin you can get," Blake Nickerson said.

Nickerson, is now in a 12-step program in Orlando, who said he bought some of his supply through underground markets on the Internet. Nickerson said that’s how some dealers get it, too.

"I wasn't even using U.S. currency. I was using this stuff called bitcoins, which is Internet currency," Nickerson said.

Inspectors at U.S. Customs and Border Protection said they can't catch everything, as much as they try. 9 Investigates found the consequences are deadly when these drugs end up on the streets.

Last month, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement released its latest report, showing the number of drug-related deaths statewide.

Florida recorded 3,420 deaths linked to opioids in just the first half of 2015, putting the state on track to pass the number deaths the year before by 13 percent. Results for the latter half of 2015 will be released later this year.

Those dying from illegal drug overdoses almost always had a mixture of drugs in their system. 9 Investigates exposed in February how dealers are mixing drugs like heroin with fentanyl, which The Orange-Osceola County Medical Examiner called “instant death.”

"It's very difficult. You're dealing with another country, so you have to have the cooperation. But many times what we're seeing is no shipping address or no shipper. When we do see it, it's a fake name," Spataro said.

U.S. law enforcement said it has no jurisdiction in China, making it nearly impossible to go after the dealers mixing the illicit drugs overseas.

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs told Eyewitness News she’s doing work in fighting the heroin epidemic. A task force she launched with state and local law enforcement marked 372 heroin-related arrests just between August and March of this year.

Contact Daralene Jones for more on this story.