German Criminal Police Office

About: German Criminal Police Office is a government organization based out in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Mass spectrometry. The organization has 254 authors who have published 338 publications receiving 8489 citations.

Documentation of a heroin manufacturing process in Afghanistan

Abstract: The present article documents an authentic process of heroin manufacturing in Afghanistan: white heroin hydrochloride produced using simple equipment and a small quantity of chemicals. The quantities of chemicals actually used corresponded to the minimum needed for manufacturing heroin. The only organic solvent used was acetone, and only a very small quantity of it was used. Because the chemicals used in the demonstration were from actual seizures in Afghanistan, some of the chemicals had been disguised or repackaged by smugglers. Others had been put into labelled containers that proved to be counterfeit, and some glass containers used were not the original containers of the manufacturer displayed on the label. The brown heroin base prepared as an intermediate step in the process shares some of the characteristics of the South-West Asia type of heroin preparations often seized in Germany. The final product of the documented heroin manufacturing process was white heroin hydrochloride, which shares the key characteristics of the white heroin occasionally seized in Germany and other countries in Western Europe since 2000. The present article demonstrates that this kind of heroin can be produced in Afghanistan.

The validation of a 15 STR multiplex PCR for Cannabis species.

Abstract: Trade and acquisition of Cannabis drugs are illegal in many countries worldwide; nevertheless, crimes related with these drugs are a major problem for the investigative authorities With this manuscript, we want to introduce a 15 short tandem repeat (STR) Cannabis marker set that can be amplified in one PCR reaction This multiplex PCR is specific to Cannabis species and combines highly informative STR markers The 15 STR multiplex is easy to use and was validated according to common laboratory quality standards Due to the fact that a lot of Cannabis plants are cultivated by clonal propagation and may show aneuploidy, polyploidy or multiple gene loci, it is not possible to apply biostatistics that follow the Hardy-Weinberg law However, this multiplex will help the police to trace back trade routes of drug syndicates or dealers and it can help to link Cannabis plants to a crime scene

Movement of an individual Bloch wall in a single-crystal picture frame of silicon iron at very low velocities

Abstract: The movement of an individual Bloch wall in a single-crystal picture frame of silicon iron was studied. By using an electronic apparatus the wall velocity was held constant during the magnetization reversal. It was possible to control the wall velocity down to 10-2mm/s. Even at these low velocities the relationship between the wall velocity v and the driving magnetic field H is precisely linear: v = const . (H-H_{0}) . This is to be expected under the given experimental condition dB/dt = const .

Rapid on-site detection of explosives on surfaces by ambient pressure laser desorption and direct inlet single photon ionization or chemical ionization mass spectrometry.

Abstract: Considering current security issues, powerful tools for detection of security-relevant substances such as traces of explosives and drugs/drug precursors related to clandestine laboratories are required. Especially in the field of detection of explosives and improvised explosive devices, several relevant compounds exhibit a very low vapor pressure. Ambient pressure laser desorption is proposed to make these substances available in the gas phase for the detection by adapted mass spectrometers or in the future with ion-mobility spectrometry as well. In contrast to the state-of-the-art thermal desorption approach, by which the sample surface is probed for explosive traces by a wipe pad being transferred to a thermal desorber unit, by the ambient pressure laser desorption approach presented here, the sample is directly shockwave ablated from the surface. The laser-dispersed molecules are sampled by a heated sniffing capillary located in the vicinity of the ablation spot into the mass analyzer. This approach has the advantage that the target molecules are dispersed more gently than in a thermal desorber unit where the analyte molecules may be decomposed by the thermal intake. In the technical realization, the sampling capillary as well as the laser desorption optics are integrated in the tip of an endoscopic probe or a handheld sampling module. Laboratory as well as field test scenarios were performed, partially in cooperation with the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA, Wiesbaden, Germany), in order to demonstrate the applicability for various explosives, drugs, and drug precursors. In this work, we concentrate on the detection of explosives. A wide range of samples and matrices have been investigated successfully.