Festival-goers being sold cement dust and talcum powder by dodgy drug dealers
Police believe the substances weren passed off as ketamine and ecstasy
DODGY dealers sold festival-goers cement dust and talcum powder instead of drugs, it has been revealed.
Police said revellers dumped illegal drugs like ketamine and ecstacy in amnesty bins at Gottwood Festival in Wales at the weekend.
But officers also found stacks of talc and cement dust, apparently sold on to music fans as the real thing.
Chief Inspector Mark Armstrong, of North Wales Police, said: “We have had drugs put into the amnesty bins particularly ketamine and MDMA but at very low levels.
“Interestingly we have also had substances deposited that people had obviously bought believing them to be drugs that were actually things like talcum powder or cement dust and not drugs at all.
“The fact unscrupulous dealers would sell someone pure talcum powder or anything else purporting it to be a drug says it all. If ingested then it could cause serious harm."
North Wales Police set up amnesty bins and a mobile testing unit in a bid to keep fans safe after two young people died at Mutiny Festival in Portsmouth.
Tom Elkington, a Gottwood Festival director, told : “We will never stop people bringing drugs with them but what we have to do is make it as safe as possible.
“What we do is test as much as we can but without qualified chemist’s on site we are limited to how much we can do.
"But if someone does feel unwell we can run some basic tests to check on the potency of whatever substance they have taken.
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“We can then get the message out via social media, audible announcements and posters letting people know of any particular dangerous mix of drugs or high potency of substances that may have found their way onto the site."
Festival-goers were given the chance to voluntarily give up their drugs before being searched by security at the festival entrance.
More than 5,000 people attended the four-day event in the grounds of the Carreglwyd Estate from Thursday to Sunday.
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