The current practice in securing the contact traces of chemical substances taken from clothes belonging to a person suspected of manual handling explosives is focused on pockets and cuffs. The outerwear worn by people who had contact with fluorescent powders that simulate explosives and drugs was the subject of this study. Clothes were first exposed to the test substance for a period of time and then analyzed by fluorescence methods to determine the location of the highest quantity of traces. The results obtained from the study confirm that the areas with the highest concentration of powdery traces are different from those suggested by current forensic practice. They appear to be promising for a more efficient identification of the suspects involved in illegal manufacturing of drugs of abuse or explosives. Moreover, they may be helpful for developing the methodology for handling the evidence material in the forensic clothing examination process.
The work contains a review of literature data referring to the methods of generating pyrotechnic smokes with inclusion of chemical composition of widely used smoke generating substances and, in particular, specifications of dyes used in pyrotechnic products. Construction of such devices, the manner of initiating ignition and possibilities of identification of residues resulting from their use were explained basing on 79 examined smoke generators. Analyses of smoke generating mixtures were executed with use of classical chemistry techniques, spectroscopy in infrared light (FTIR-ATR), electron microscopy (SEM-EDX), as well as gas chromatography- -mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The analyses have demonstrated that 2-methylanthraquinone is most often used for generating white smokes, soot – for generating black smokes, quinolone dyes – for yellow smokes, copper phthalocyanine for blue smokes, and anthraquinone dyes for the remaining colours. The GC-MS technique has proven an effective analytical tool both for identification of the dye in the smoke generating substance and detection on various surfaces of traces resulting from the use of smoke generator.
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