Dealers making huge profits peddling super-strength pills on Northern Ireland streets

UTV can reveal a deadly drug that's being peddled on the streets of Northern Ireland can be bought in bulk on the dark web for as little as 10p a pill.

The use of the opioid nitazenes was first reported here in 2022 and users buy it for a £1 a time - with dealers making huge profits.

PSNI Detective Superintendent Avine Kelly said: "They're purchasing these online or on the streets and they have no idea what's contained within these tables, they could contain nitazenes, which could be disastrous for Northern Ireland."

The dark web is where the dealers, crime gangs and paramilitaries are buying in bulk.

These pills are cut with another street drug, benzodiazepine, and are manufactured in labs in China and India.

If you order as many as 100,000 - not uncommon when you're talking about the main players in all of this - they'll cost you as little as 10p each.

The profit on the streets is £90,000.

"Our paramilitaries, they exploit the drug market so if they see that there is profit to be made they are likely to become involved in this type of criminality," Detective Superintendent Kelly said.

So far - eight deaths here that we know about. The full picture is still emerging.

Michael McDowell, a former addict, said: "There's an incredible amount of young people who are opioid-naive, who would take benzodiazepines on a regular basis.

"The danger is they are opioid-naive, they take these benzodiazepines, and they're lights out, no way back."

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