Química Nova (Jan 2007)

Determination of cocaine in brazilian paper currency by capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrometry

  • Enrico Di Donato,
  • Carmen Cinira Santos Martin,
  • Bruno Spinosa De Martinis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40422007000800031
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 30, no. 8
pp. 1966 – 1967

Abstract

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The presence of illicit drugs such as cocaine and marijuana in US paper currency is very well demonstrated. However, there is no published study describing the presence of cocaine and/or other illicit drugs in Brazilian paper currency. In this study, Brazilian banknotes were collected from nine cities, extracted and analyzed by capillary gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, in order to investigate the presence of cocaine. Bills were extracted with deionized water followed by ethyl acetate. Results showed that 93% of the bills presented cocaine in a concentration range of 2.38-275.10 µg/bill.

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