A recommended procedure for establishing the source level relationships between heroin case samples of unknown origins

Predicting the Geographic Origin of Heroin by Multivariate Analysis of Elemental Composition and Strontium Isotope Ratios

“…There have been attempts to perform source comparisons using trace elements [40][41][42], however these have reported observations of sample grouping and similarity rather than clearly describing a method that could be used to compare two samples in forensic casework.…”

“…As of 2017, the DEA has formed a signature program for fentanyl and fentanyl analogs to study inter-sample variations akin to that of the Heroin Signature Program, established in 1977 [26][27][28] [6, 8, 9, 11-15, 18-20, 30-35]. While attempts to profile heroin using an inorganic analysis of elemental impurities have been investigated [7,[36][37][38][39], the method has yet to become adopted for provenance determination, but rather shows promise for conducting street-level sample comparisons [40,41]. Budic and Klemenc reported the first instance of microwave-assisted acid digestion for the analysis of major crustal elements in heroin by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) [37].…”

“…The availability of a method in which samples can be prepared, analyzed and compared in less than 24 hours with no necessary chemical derivatizations nor separations is expected to be of great use to forensic However, sample comparison of illegal drug evidence can help investigators to solve an individual criminal case as well as support the fight against illegal drug trafficking through gathering intel on distribution networks[40,41,58]. The majority of the works on forensic heroin comparisons have been performed by analysis of associated organic components[5,6,40,[59][60][61]. Taking samples from the same container is an overly simplistic representation of a forensic comparison scenario and is not an accurate reflection of how the method might perform for samples that are unknown; however, it is necessary given that one must use samples that are known to share the same intra-sample chemical composition.…”