JACKSONVILLE: Jacksonville U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized a package containing a nearly three-pound bottle of a chemical used in date rape drugs on Friday.
The package’s destination was in the Jacksonville metro area, confirms CBP Port Director Douglas Straatsma. It was shipped from Hong Kong.
The chemical is called gamma-butyrolactone, or GBL. It only takes a couple grams of the stuff to knock someone out; that’s about the weight of a quarter. The bottle was 1.35 kilograms — enough to knock out hundreds of people.
“It’s just crazy that something that horrible is happening in Jacksonville. It’s a pretty family-oriented city,” said Jacksonville resident Jackie Laney.
GBL is nearly impossible to detect in a drink. It’s a colorless, odorless, nearly flavorless liquid. It’s illegal to import GBL to the United States without proper permission.
“They hit the jackpot with this,” said Action News Jax crime and safety expert Ken Jefferson.
He said getting the bottle off the streets is a big win. As someone who used to investigate sex crimes, he knows just how dangerous this chemical is.
“You’re in a daze. It’s kind of like you’re sedated, you’re heavily sedated,” said Jefferson.
He said catching the person who shipped this stuff from Hong Kong may not be as easy as tracing it back to the return address.
“They know that it can be traced to a particular address. It may be a phantom address or an empty warehouse at this particular time because they’ll get word that the shipment is not in, and they’ll move and they’ll keep moving,” said Jefferson.
Last month a Customs and Border Protection air crew operating out of Jacksonville detected a suspicious vessel south of Puerto Rico. They helped the Coast Guard intercept the vessel and found smugglers hiding more than a ton of cocaine on board.
