Free Republic

After a year-long investigation, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office on Monday announced it had busted a fentanyl distribution organization that was mixing a dangerous animal tranquilizer into the drugs it was selling. The animal tranquilizer, xylazine, is known to cause wounds at injection sites that destroy flesh and can lead to the amputation of limbs. Because it is a sedative and not a narcotic, users who overdose on drugs mixed with the drug might not be revived by treatments like Narcan, said sheriff's spokesman Andrew Gant. Operation Empire was carried out by the Volusia Bureau of Investigation and East Volusia...

Mariangela Cerrato, 53, came up with the plan when she heard rumors about job cutsAn Italian woman who spiked her colleague's coffee for nine months in the hope that she would be sacked has been jailed for four years. Mariangela Cerrato, 53, came up with the plan when she heard rumors about job cuts at the insurance company she worked for in Bra, Piedmont. Cerrato put benzodiazepine powder into her co-worker's cappuccino when doing the daily coffee run for her team

A Russian man has been charged with killing 13 fellow train passengers by offering them tranquilliser-laced drinks before robbing them and leaving them to die, investigators said Wednesday. The 23-year-old attacker targeted well-dressed, tipsy male travellers on commuter trains and at rail stations in Moscow and the surrounding region, Moscow transport investigators said in a statement. He gave them drinks laced with a "huge dose of a strong tranquilliser" and waited for them to black out, then stole their money, mobile phones and bank cards before leaving them in an unconscious state, the statement said. "Thirteen people died at the...