Toronto cops hunt source of drugs blamed for seven deaths
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After seven deadly overdoses within 12 days in one area of the city, investigators are anxious to track down the source of a lethal batch of drugs containing the fentanyl or carfentanil.
Toronto Police say the deaths span from Aug. 2-13 and all occurred within 14 division, which is bounded by Spadina Ave., Roncesvales Ave., Dupont St. and Lakeshore Blvd. W.
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“I noticed we were attending numerous sudden deaths in a short period and realized there was a pattern,” Det. Viv Meik said Wednesday. “And this only includes the deaths.”
Others have overdosed but managed to survive, he said.
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Meik notified the Coroner who concluded the overdoses involved either fentanyl or carfentanil, but he said further testing must be done to determine which drug killed the seven victims.
“Carfentanil is deadly,” Meik said. “It’s 100 times more potent than fentanyl.”
Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid — as much as 10,000 times stronger than morphine — often purchased online from China. Dealers spike other drugs such as heroin with carfentanil, which is cheap, to increase potency.
But an amount of carfentanil as small as a grain of sand can be deadly, so the drug has been in the news repeatedly in the last two years following clusters of overdoses and major busts by cops across the country.
Most recently, carfentanil made headlines in the wake of the deadly July 22 mass shooting on Danforth Ave. when it surfaced the older brother of Faisal Hussain — the alleged gunman — had ties to Canada’s largest carfentanil seizure ever by volume.
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Fahad Hussain was charged with trafficking crack cocaine in 2015 in Saskatoon, Sask. — the same city where the handgun used by Faisal Hussain was stolen from a gun store in 2016 — and was bailed out by his childhood friend Maisum Ansari.
Fahad Hussain, who had known ties to the Thorncliffe Park Kings gang, later returned to Ontario but was under court order to live at a Pickering house owned by Ansari — a house where Durham cops seized 33 guns and 42 kilograms of carfentanil worth more than $13 million on the street in September 2017.
Ansari, 33, and a second man, Babar Ali, 30, are still before the courts, facing hundreds of related charges.
Meanwhile, Fahad Hussain is in a vegetative state in hospital after overdosing last summer — shortly before the carfentanil seizure — on a mix of cocaine and heroin that may have been laced with another substance.
Meek said the recent overdoses have occurred in neighbourhoods such as Parkdale, Kensington Market and the Annex.
“Some of these people were seasoned drug users who knew how much to consume,” he said, speculating the victims likely bought heroin not knowing it contained fentanyl or carfentanil.
Meek urged anyone with information regarding the source of the bad drugs to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
On Twitter: @SunDoucette
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