Powdered fentanyl. (Photo: Provided/Drug Enforcement Administration)
LAFAYETTE — There's a story behind every drug deal or overdose in Tippecanoe County.
Most of those stories begin in a foreign country — where heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine, among other deadly substances, are manufactured — and end in tragedy in Lafayette, where residents consume and sometimes overdose on drugs smuggled through a complicated, international web of organized crime, according to police.
A report last week by the Journal & Courier, for example, outlined the prevalence of "ice," a pure form of meth manufactured in "super labs" and smuggled into the U.S. by Mexican cartels.
"Most of the things that we deal with end up coming from a Mexican cartel, just because their infrastructure is so organized and they already have their routes, their transportation into the U.S.," said Lt. Tim Payne, who heads the Tippecanoe County Drug Task Force. "So a lot of what we see ends up coming from down south, and it's just their profit margin. That’s how they make their money."
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