Catania, he swallows a whole bag of drugs to escape control but risks suffocation. Amphetamine pusher saved by the Carabinieri

Preventive activity against widespread crime phenomena and maximum effectiveness in contrasting drug dealing, these are the operational inputs that led the Carabinieri of the Piazza Dante Station, together with their colleagues from Piazza Verga, to the arrest in flagrante of a 42-year-old local man, responsible for possession of narcotics for the purpose of dealing.
The circumstances of the arrest, however, were at least singular given that the patrol that surprised the drug dealer had to perform an anti-choking maneuver on him.

It was around midnight, in fact, when the Carabinieri spotted the man who was standing near Piazza Alcalà and, covering his head with the hood of his sweatshirt, was looking around, as if waiting for someone. Suspicious, The Carabinieri decided to subject him to a check but he, having noticed their presence, immediately grabbed a plastic bag from his backpack and swallowed it, but was unable to swallow it.

The soldiers of the Army, who saw him turn purple, intervened immediately and, thanks to the life-saving first aid technique used in case of airway obstruction – the Heimlich maneuver – They managed to make him expel the bag, which contained more than 10 grams of ketamine, pink cocaine and MDMA (ecstasy).

That reckless gesture, which could have cost him his life, was obviously followed by a search during which, in the pocket of his jeans, the investigators recovered €1700 and the keys to an Alfa Romeo.. Although the evidence gathered made it clear that the 42-year-old was dealing drugs, he attempted to divert the Carabinieri's attention by saying that the Alfa Romeo was his but was not parked nearby but in Messina, and then he also lied about his address. His lies, however, did not convince the Carabinieri, who contacted the Operations Center for immediate data bank checks.

The operational synergy between the Carabinieri who are "on the field" and those who are instead in the Headquarters and, therefore, can check the databases of the Police Forces in real time, has allowed to deny the pusher, also tracing the address of his home in Catania, where the military went, but not before having also traced the car, parked in a side street of Piazza Alcalà.

In the vehicle, the investigators found a set of keys that they took with them for the search, and which allowed them to open the door of an apartment in which, on the bedside table in the bedroom, they found many other doses of drugs, always of the ecstasy type, ketamine and pink cocaine, for a weight of 400 grams, in addition to the excipients necessary to produce the latter substance, including creatine and pink food powder.

Pink cocaine, in fact, is a synthetic drug obtained from a mix of ketamine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and crack, mixed together and colored pink, and is a psychoactive substance that has devastating effects on the brain and leads to psychotic states and strong addiction, with a cost of almost €400 per gram and, for this reason, called "the rich man's drug".
Alongside the psychedelic drugs, the pusher had hidden more than €12.000, certainly the earnings from that illicit activity.

Finally, in the kitchen of the house, the Carabinieri also found precision scales, sachets for single doses and other material useful for packaging the drugs.

The man was therefore arrested and, by order of the Judicial Authority that validated his arrest, confined in the Catania Piazza Lanza prison, while all the substances and money found were seized.