Once upon a time in falling Russia, vast quantities of an unscheduled precursor was sourced and dispatched through the mafia to waiting labs in Holland.
The precursor, PMK or piperonal methyl ketone was none other than the already classified MDP2P under another name. Of course it took little time to ensure this was specifically classified, but not before vast quantities - we are talking tons of the stuff - were shipped through Europe. The Russian bosses claimed they had enough, allowing for future increases in demand, to last decades!! This precursor was one synthesis step away from MDMA, and people were cooking it up with a relative ease, comparable to the pseudo reduction currently used to make speed in Aus.
A similar thing is likely to have occurred with Chinese suppliers of PMK, the chemical probably having being imported into Burma and neighboring countries around the same time.
Piperonal is another starting material, also known as heliotropin. This latter term was undoubtedly used to source it when piperonal was first classified as a restricted import. It's not that this was legal to do, it was just that customs officials did not link the two substances as being the same chemical.
What I'm getting at here, is that most chemicals are known not only by different nomenclature (chem names) but also often by different common names throughout the various industries where they are employed.
I believe this is how a high safrole containing mixture is being currently imported. I have no intention of saying what the product might be, but if I'm correct it is used in a very legit industry. Of course that source will not last as an option to importers, but it doesn’t stop stockpiles being made.
These days with OTC methods being hailed as being successful, it means if one has the starting material, all other chems can be obtained without suspicion or high degree of risk. With the burgeoning speed industry, there are those who produce only precursors and required chemicals. What’s to stop such people from extracting safrole or producing / refining other chemicals?
