Cocaine chemical profiling can provide relevant information for law enforcement authorities. Since 2006, Brazilian Federal Police has been working on its own cocaine impurity profiling program (PeQui project). In the effort to establish chemical profiling routines, this work describes major component results (cocaine purity, degree of oxidation and pharmaceutical products used as cutting agents), identified by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID) analysis of 210 samples seized in several Brazilian states between 2009 and 2012. The mean purity of cocaine was 71% (expressed as base) and the degree of oxidation, determined by the relative content between cis/trans-cinnamoylcocaine and cocaine, depends on the location where the seizures were performed. Most of the not oxidized samples were seized on traditional cocaine producer country border states. Cocaine is mainly present in free base form (59%) and more than 50% of the analyzed samples did not have any major adulterant. Among the identified cutting agents, phenacetin was the most abundant (30% of the total samples). Levamisole, caffeine and lidocaine were also identified. The PeQui project has been used on regular basis to provide technical and scientifically based information to law enforcement intelligence analysis and statistical data that might contribute to the better understanding of the cocaine trafficking.
cocaine; chemical profiling; purity; refining; cutting agents; PeQui
