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Toothpick test turns cellphones into a drug dealer's worst enemy

By James Randerson

20 July 2002

IT’S BECOME an essential tool for drug dealers, but the mobile phone could also prove their downfall. And wiping incriminating calls from the phone’s memory won’t help. It’s the gunk between the buttons the police are after.

The many tiny crevices on a cellphone can harbour drug particles if the user has been in regular contact with them. But until recently, no one knew if a cellphone could be innocently contaminated with drugs. Since cocaine traces are present on 99 per cent of British bank notes, it’s possible that phones are easily tainted.

Now forensic scientists have shown that the…

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