It’s like Amazon for hard drugs: cocaine, heroin and ecstasy, paid for with credit cards and e-transfers, delivered by Canada Post.
For weeks, CBC Ottawa and Radio-Canada exchanged messages with nearly a dozen people who have been buying these drugs online. Eventually one came forward, offering to talk about their experience.
“The first time I was like, OK, it’s not true, it’s a scam,” John said. CBC has agreed to withhold his real name because he fears the impact of his drug use on his family and his job.
“You go on the website and it’s very easy.”
We started seeing ads offering pure cocaine pop up on Facebook and Instagram, with images of white powder. Pretty soon our social media feeds were flooded with them.
These narcotics are highly addictive and highly illegal, but the ads reassure potential buyers that the drugs are tested and safely delivered.
For John, it meant a drug he had been addicted to in the past was suddenly within easy reach.
“My relationship with this drug [is] love-hate,” he said. “I had a dream about many things. The cocaine in a certain way destroyed this dream. One of these dreams was to become a cop.”
John says he had successfully kicked his addiction — until he saw the ads on social media.
“So you have this ad, it looks professional. You go on the website and it’s very easy. It’s like on Amazon. You have many drugs, and you have cocaine,” he said. “I was like, it’s unbelievable to see this on social media.”
I opened the package and I was like, OK, it’s real. It’s real stuff, it’s real cocaine.– John
Despite John’s skepticism, as the ads increasingly populated his feed, old habits got the better of him. He clicked on an ad and ordered a few grams of cocaine.
Pretty soon he had a Canada Post tracking number. Days later he received a message that his package had arrived.
“I go to the mailbox. I opened the package and I was like, OK, it’s real. It’s real stuff, it’s real cocaine,” he said.
John tried the drug right away and says it felt pure.
“I don’t know if it’s 70, 80, 90 per cent, but I know it’s good stuff,” he said.
His experience matches that of many others with whom CBC has interacted online.
The Canadian Centre for Substance Abuse and Addiction warns that cocaine use is very dangerous and can lead to stroke, coma and in some cases death.
The added danger is that the drug can be tainted with an even deadlier substance: fentanyl.
John decided to have his next purchase tested. A team from Radio-Canada accompanied him to pick up the delivery from his Canada Post community mailbox, and both Radio-Canada and CBC Ottawa were present when the contents were tested at a specialized harm reduction clinic in Quebec.
We’ve known about it for a while, so we thought it was pretty much common knowledge.– Maude Choinière, Quebec social worker
Maude Choinière, a social worker who conducts testing at the clinic, said an increasing number of people have been bringing in drugs bought on the open web after seeing ads on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
“We’ve known about it for a while, so we thought it was pretty much common knowledge,” Choinière said. “We were surprised at first, but now it’s becoming [normal]. I mean, I wouldn’t say half of what we test is [purchased online], but I’d say it’s a good portion of the drugs we test.”
The test looks for potentially deadly additives. John’s sample tests positive for cocaine, but no fentanyl was detected.
CBC spoke to a number of buyers who had left reviews on the sites where they purchased drugs.
Some said they were less worried about finding deadly additives in drugs purchased from online sellers. Others said they turned to the sites because they felt it reduced the chances of getting caught making a drug deal in public.
CBC Ottawa scrolled through hundreds of ads leading to more than a dozen different websites, all selling illegal drugs. The websites operate openly, but their digital infrastructure is anything but.
CBC’s Visual Investigations Unit (VIU) took an in-depth look at the websites in an attempt to track down their digital footprint and determine their possible location.
“They use all the tools,” said Ivan Angelovski, a forensic analyst with the VIU. “You can see that they basically created a wall that open-source researchers and journalists cannot open.”
The websites are sophisticated and hard to track. Their web addresses often change from one day to the next. Their digital information is shielded by high-level privacy tools and coding.
“It’s just remarkable how they rely on this privacy industry,” said Angelovski. “Some of these privacy tools were created to help regular people … not to be tracked by these big internet businesses, but they’re using those same systems to basically do criminal work.”
The digital architecture may be complex, but the websites operate in plain view of anyone online.
The drug ads appear on social media platforms including Instagram and Facebook, owned by parent company Meta, which makes more than 90 per cent of its profits from advertising.
Meta refused an interview request from CBC. Instead, a spokesperson responded with an email.
“Content that attempts to buy, sell or trade illicit drugs is not allowed on our platforms. We have removed the flagged ads and pages, disabled the ad accounts, and restricted the account admins from running ads in the future,” the spokesperson wrote.
I think it’s a constant fight, because I think it’s a game of whack-a-mole.– Scott Roth, LegitScript
Meta says it uses AI and specialized consultants to flag and stop the ads. LegitScript is one company that specializes in flagging ads that sell illegal content online.
“The scale is absolutely massive in terms of how many advertisements are being placed on these platforms on any given day,” said LegitScript’s CEO Scott Roth. “I think it’s a constant fight, because I think it’s a game of whack-a-mole.”
It’s a game that can’t be fully won, Roth said.
The Canada Post Corporation Act gives Canada Post the authority to inspect mail, other than letters, it suspects of containing illegal items including drugs.
Canada Post refused requests for an in-person interview, and instead sent CBC an emailed statement.
“When our Postal Inspectors confirm that an item contains an illegal drug, they remove the item from the mail stream and turn it over to the police,” the Crown corporation wrote.
In 2024, Canada Post removed 5,662 illegal items from a total 240 million parcels.
CBC Ottawa also spoke to six police officers from different departments with experience in drug investigations. None had heard about these sites operating on the open web. They said any investigation would fall within the jurisdiction of the RCMP.
We are actively targeting individuals and networks profiting from the sale of illicit substances online.– RCMP
CBC reached out to the RCMP over several weeks. Canada’s national police force refused our repeated requests for an interview, but a spokesperson replied in an email.
“Through coordinated investigations, advanced cyber tools, and strong partnerships … we are actively targeting individuals and networks profiting from the sale of illicit substances online,” the spokesperson wrote.
During the course of our investigation, the same sites selling illegal drugs on the open internet continued to pop up under different web addresses.
After accompanying CBC to the drug testing facility, John decided to have the drugs destroyed. CBC ensured the drugs were properly destroyed.
“For me, it’s what I had to do to really liberate myself from this drug,” he said.
John says seeing the ads repeatedly on his social media feeds has made that difficult, and says that’s part of the reason he decided to come forward.
“If you have addiction and you go on social media and you see this every day, and many times every day, it will keep you in this addiction,” he said.
