2 Investigators: Addict On Home Confinement Able To Order Heroin Online
(CBS) -- A mother trying to keep her son away from drugs discovered that heroin was being delivered right to her suburban home via the Internet.
CBS 2's Dave Savini reports.
"I thought that maybe drug dealers were coming to my house, which was even more scary," said the mother, who does not want her name used.
But she learned her 21-year-old son, addicted to heroin for the past three years, found a web site to get his drugs while he was on home confinement.
"It's out of control," said the mother.
Savini learned the web site uses hard-to-trace money wire transfers, digital currency called "bitcoins" and a secure Web browser to fly under the radar of police.
It is as easy as clicking a mouse. Drugs like heroin, Ecstasy and steroids are boldly advertised and even have "specials." While visiting the mother and son last month, CBS 2 observed a "sale" offering 7 grams of crack cocaine for $675.
"There's no paper trail of anything you're doing," said the son, who also did not want his name used. "Everything on here is generally more expensive than you'd pay on the street."
He once bought his heroin on a Chicago street corner before using the website.
The drugs are shipped in a U.S. Post Office Express Mail envelope. One package came stamped with the word "murder" and the emblem of a gun. The son has heat up the heroin and injected it with syringes he also bought on the site.
"I really got weak in the knees and almost couldn't breathe for a little while because it was just so flabbergasting to me," the mother said of her reaction to learning about the web site.
She says she saw a recent CBS 2 investigation into the soaring heroin overdose death rate in the collar counties and the fight narcotics teams are waging on dealers.
She does not want her son to be the next overdose victim.
"It absolutely needs to be shut down," she said of the web site. "People need to know that this is a way for people who are addicts to get their hands on drugs that can kill them."
She said her son has already been saved once. After a trip to the South Side of Chicago to buy drugs, he overdosed and then was pushed out of a moving car by a friend and left to die.
"I think he just wanted to get out of there so he wouldn't get in trouble or get his stuff taken," the son explained.
Richard Blass, a former deputy police chief who is now an attorney representing the family, is not surprised at the drug-dealing website.
"I just wish that some of these people would spend more time doing good with their brains than selling heroin, guns, or pornography to people over the internet," he says.
No one from the U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would comment on any active investigations involving the web site. Officials say they're aware of it.
