back to article Printing Bad: Meth found in laser printer cartridges

Australia's Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) has intercepted laser printer cartridges full of methamphetamine and charged a woman with importing a controlled drug. The cartridges were inspected at a Sydney air cargo facility where officers spotted a white powder. White toner cartridges being something of an oddity …

  1. btrower

    Same thing, with on big difference

    Whether 'grey market' toner cartridges or black market meth, the costs are tiny and the margins insane. It is very tempting. The best way is to operate like the drug companies and major printer vendors. In the 'legitimate' market everybody gets a taste and business rolls on as usual. Instead of jail time, you get awards.

    What gets you in trouble is cutting out the real crime lords who run major corporations and who have hijacked the government.

  2. Mark 85

    This doesn't make sense..

    Importing meth? Really? Here in the States, meth production is a local industry. It seems like every town has at least one meth lab. So why would it be shipped in?

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: This doesn't make sense..

      Yup, I never fail to stock up at Crazy Johnny's "Meth & Drive" on my weekly way to get mugged at the HP printer supplies shop.

      1. Salts

        Re: This doesn't make sense..

        But using third party meth or refills will invalidate your warranty.

    2. Mephistro

      Re: This doesn't make sense..

      "So why would it be shipped in?"

      Probably the crooks made some risk calculation, and decided it would be safer for them making the product abroad and then sending the stuff through customs. Production in Australia has lots of risks and depends on several controlled substances, that in turn have to be smuggled into the country, significantly rising the risk of being discovered.

      On the other hand, in China, you probably can rent an industrial facility to make tons of this stuff, pay the workers a minimal salary and be safe from police interference, just by greasing the right hands.

      Obviously, the 'production abroad' method needs some safe way to send the stuff through customs, and these crims thought they had such method. Soon someone will try to improve it by making meth look like toner, probably by adding squid ink.

      He he!, it's an arms race, only that one part has to expend many millions in customs agent's wages, detector devices, surveillance and the whatnot, while the other just needs to go to the fish market. :-)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This doesn't make sense..

        Would you trust drugs made by Australians - have you tasted their beer?

        It's a sad indictment of your science education when you need to import drugs because you can't make them locally

      2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        Re: This doesn't make sense..

        The Russians have managed to invent the "safe method" already. There heroin, morphine, cocaine and meth are yesterday's OAP drugs. The fun compound of the day are artificial cannabinoids, aka Spice.

        Every time the regulatory bodies declare the current variety a control substance, it gets modified - a methyl group here, a hydroxyl there, some experimentation on the local drug addicts and voila here is the new legal high - perfectly legal for the next 6-9 months despite being as addictive as heroin. All that is needed is for the drug syndicates to employ a couple of PhD level organic synthesis professionals.

        So no matter what the Atreides from the state police do, "The Spice Must Flow".

        By the way, as far as the West is concerned it is a lose-lose situation. For the time being the Spice is confined to the borders of the old Soviet Union. It is not a matter of "if it will break out", it is a matter of "when".

        1. Elmer Phud

          Re: This doesn't make sense..

          Sooooo, how come 'Spice' (and other stuff) was usually sent from China?

        2. Irongut

          Re: This doesn't make sense..

          "The Russians... artificial cannabinoids... new legal high... as addictive as heroin..."

          The Daily Wail is that way. >>>

        3. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: This doesn't make sense..

          "Every time the regulatory bodies declare the current variety a control substance, it gets modified - "

          Only in jurisdictions which legislate specific chemical combinations and don't have a "XYZ family" definition too.

          The only reason this stuff is happening at all is simple: Profit.

          Production costs are very low and sale prices are very high so no amount of interdiction will stem the trade. Paradoxically, the more interdiction that occurs, the more profit can be made. At some point this results in people pushing crack to schoolkids because they can make a few bucks by doing so, regardless of the possible consequences. It's interesting to note that Cannabis use amongst teenagers in Colorado has substantially decreased with legalisation, because it's a now a lot harder for them to obtain and it looks like the same thing is occuring in other areas where it's been legalised.

    3. Crazy Operations Guy

      Re: Importing meth into the US

      Actually, that's not true anymore; most meth on the streets in the US is manufactured in Mexico. The Cartels are able to use their immense amounts of power to manufacture meth at an industrial scale and far more efficiently than a small lab in the US, especially since they can get all the chemicals they want without scrutiny. They also have the advantage of having a very good smuggling and distribution network already in place that they've been building since the 1960's.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Importing meth into the US

        That not totally correct either, there is a lot of meth being produced in poor US neighbourhoods. The cartels sale alot but avoid the poorer areas where most buyers are fearful of outsiders.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So why would it be shipped in?

      Silk Road is down so the automatic internet refill order had stopped working.

    5. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: This doesn't make sense..

      Importing meth? Really? Here in the States, meth production is a local industry. It seems like every town has at least one meth lab. So why would it be shipped in?

      Ah, the eternal religious war between the connoisseurs of fine imported meth with its cosmopolitan blend of the best ingredients, and the "methies" who insist on the local artisanal meth for its regional notes.

      Sooner or later WIPO will get involved to settle the trademark disputes, and then things will get nasty.

  3. Mephistro
    Angel

    After reading this article, I finally understood...

    ...the reason nobody was using printer cartridges for smuggling high purity heroin.

    Thanks, ElReg!

  4. Mark Wilson

    You know you are getting old when...

    You know you are getting old when you read meth in the title and assume someone has been putting methylated spirits in toner cartridges, did think it a bit odd!

    1. foo_bar_baz
      Holmes

      Re: You know you are getting old when...

      Paper output and meth: for a moment I could smell and hear the spirit duplicator in our school corridors again. How's that for showing my age?

      1. ratfox
        Windows

        Re: You know you are getting old when...

        Oh man. Suddenly I felt I was sitting in second grade again. I'm not sure when they went out of style; by high school Xerox was everywhere.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: You know you are getting old when...

          by high school Xerox was everywhere

          Photocopiers may hog the spotlight, but the economics of spirit duplicators (which beat photocopying if you're making at least a couple dozen copies or thereabouts) mean they still persist in some places. We had one at my first university teaching job, at Miami University (in Ohio) in the early '90s.

          Of course I don't know when and where you went to high school. These days I understand the kids mostly just read handouts on their pocket Compu-Tabs (but only because they're not cool enough to own a set of Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles or Lunchmuffs).

  5. Vociferous

    Best sub heading ever!

    As per title!

  6. J__M__M

    This definitely gives new meaning to the term "line printer".

    Good headline by the way.

  7. Elmer Phud

    But . . .

    . . .The lower order type TV progs often show printer carts being scanned in Aus customs.

    Not exactly new.

  8. DropBear

    I'm a bit curious...

    ...what sort of scanner can tell you that the powder in a closed toner cartridge is WHITE...? Because if they opened them to look, they already had to be tipped off by something else...

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: I'm a bit curious...

      If they are anything like the TSA they probably nicked one.

      1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

        Re: TSA probably nicked one

        Not very likely - if they were like the TSA they would have nicked the lot.

        1. LaeMing

          Re: TSA probably nicked one

          I would assume some of the 'toner' was leaking out.

  9. Pypes

    She should have just said it was spot white or varnish.

    Dam amateurs (printers I mean, not drug smugglers)

    1. jcitron

      It's interesting you'd say this. I worked for a former Polaroid spin-off that was developing cartridges for this process over a decade ago! :-)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Criminals are NOT so stupid.

    That $120 cartridge costs about the same as 1g of meth. Or maybe much less, as I've understood that meth (drugs in general) is quite expensive down under.

    I'm sure you can stuff many ounces in there, so it's well worth it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Criminals are NOT so stupid.

      I think maybe it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Y'know, like a bit of an exaggeration to emphasize how expensive toner is?

  11. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    I have an addiciton...

    ...to the ""Border Control"-style TV shows.

    I have learnt:

    1. The easiest way to tell the Oz show from the Kiwi one is to wait until they go outside: If it is/has been raining, it's New Zealand

    2. Australia, Canada and New Zealand all have problems with narcotic, cannabis, meth etc.

    3. Brits try to smuggle cheap cigarettes from Tenerife.

    We are the most boring smugglers on the planet. Unless all those people who've been caught for smuggling tobacco are double-bluffing and the fags are full of cocaine... "Oh, I didn't know Tenerife wasn't in the EU so I could only bring back 200. Oh well, you live and learn, here's my 100 quid duty..."

    1. Simon Harris

      Re: I have an addiciton...

      "Oh, I didn't know Tenerife wasn't in the EU so I could only bring back 200"

      May be an easy mistake to make - The Canary Islands, as part of Spain are part of the EU, and use the Euro just like Spain, but they are a "Special member state territory" and outside of the EU VAT area and are therefore treated as outside the EU for import duty and restrictions.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: I have an addiciton...

        That's why the treaty of Utrecht and Eu VAT regulations are such popular reading for all holiday makers.

  12. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

    White toner

    White toner cartridges being something of an oddity

    They're not for everyone, but I'd have a heck of a time printing my Robert Rauschenberg handouts without them.

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