⚠️ Someone who is snoring or making gurgling sounds and cannot be woken may be having an opioid overdose. Treat this as an emergency.
Call 112 now⚠️ Last officially confirmed via DRUGSinfo/Trimbos: 8 April 2026. Counterfeit oxycodone containing nitazenes is still circulating.
Read the warning →On the illegal market, you cannot know what you are getting. Zembla research from May 2026 showed that genuine medicines from the regular pharmaceutical supply chain also reach the illegal market. At the same time, Trimbos warns about counterfeit oxycodone containing nitazenes. Both genuine and counterfeit tablets circulate. Packaging, a seller profile or a chat cannot reliably prove origin or safety.
Not everything on the illegal market is counterfeit, and that is exactly what makes it deceptive. In 2026 Zembla bought oxycodone from five dealers; the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) found that the tested products did not differ from pharmacy medicines. The Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate said a large share of illegally traded painkillers appears to come from the regular pharmaceutical chain.
At the same time, counterfeit oxycodone containing nitazenes and no oxycodone has been found in the Netherlands. There is no reliable percentage of genuine versus fake. The safe conclusion is not to guess which is real, but not to use medicines from an unknown source.
The picture is more complicated than “everything online is fake”. In May 2026 Zembla had oxycodone bought from five dealers tested. RIVM found no difference between those tested purchases and pharmacy medicines. The Dutch inspectorate also said a large share of illegally traded painkillers appears to originate from the regular pharmaceutical chain.
A genuine oxycodone tablet does not become safe simply because it is genuine. Without a prescriber, pharmacist, current medication review and dose checks, use remains risky, and its origin cannot be verified.
Trimbos and the forensic institute have found counterfeit oxycodone containing nitazenes and no oxycodone. These potent synthetic opioids can cause severe breathing problems and overdose in very small amounts.
Packaging can be genuine because a medicine was diverted from the regular chain, but packaging can also be copied. Without a verifiable supply through a doctor and pharmacy, you cannot know which situation you are looking at.
There is no representative Dutch study giving a percentage of illegal oxycodone that is genuine, counterfeit or differently formulated. Zembla's purchases show genuine medicine exists; the Red Alert shows dangerous counterfeits exist. Both are true at the same time.
Reviews, member counts, “verified” labels and fast replies are not pharmaceutical quality control.
Even convincing packaging does not tell you through which route a medicine was obtained or stored.
A pill seeming to “work” does not reliably identify the substance or dose. Do not take an extra dose to test an unknown pill.
Loose pills in a bag feel unreliable. A sealed box with a package leaflet feels safe. That difference in feeling is real, and that is exactly why it is used.
Boxes, blisters, leaflets and stickers can all be produced. The higher the price being asked, the more it pays to invest in that. So it is not true that counterfeits always look shoddy; with the more expensive fakes the opposite holds.
The same photo of a stock is sent to dozens of people. Ask for a fresh photo with something specific in it and it does not come; instead the conversation shifts to pressure: order now, almost sold out, someone else is waiting. That shift from proof to hurry is itself the signal.
Every feature that counts as trustworthy gets copied as soon as enough people look for it. That is exactly what happened with packaging. No feature holds up, because the market adapts to whatever buyers check. The only pill whose contents you know comes from a pharmacy.
What is written above comes from years of conversations with people who trade in this circuit, and from personal experience. Those are observations, not research. They are here because they explain what the figures do not: why this happens. Below is what has been formally established.
Dealers themselves quote high percentages of counterfeit and are almost certainly exaggerating. There is also no official percentage: at the Drugs Information and Monitoring System, counterfeit oxycodone falls into a residual category too small to break out separately.
What comes back consistently across many conversations is therefore not a number, but the logic: counterfeiting pays more, is rarely punished, and the price rises of recent years make it more attractive.
The Netherlands Forensic Institute has investigated six deaths and four severe poisonings linked to a nitazene since late 2024. NFI toxicologist Kristof Maudens in November 2025: "In almost all cases the nitazene was found in counterfeit oxycodone tablets."
The NFI calls that a lower bound itself, because it has no view of testing done elsewhere. The NFI also reported finding 1,007 tablets containing protonitazene in 2024 that looked like oxycodone.
That is the argument of this page in official figures: people paid for oxycodone, something completely different was delivered, and that difference cost lives.
The full Red Alert timeline →There is no reliable percentage, not even officially: at the Drugs Information and Monitoring System, counterfeit oxycodone falls into a residual category too small to break out. What is established is the outcome: since late 2024 the NFI has investigated six deaths and four severe poisonings linked to a nitazene, in almost all cases via counterfeit oxycodone. The point is not the percentage. The point is that you never know beforehand.
Because real oxycodone has to leak out of the legal chain and is therefore scarce and expensive. A pressed pill costs a fraction and sells for the same price. With oxycodone something else comes on top that does not apply to other substances: the buyer only notices hours later that there was nothing in it, and by then contact has been broken.
No. Boxes, blisters and leaflets are copied, and with more expensive counterfeits that is done convincingly. A sealed box feels more trustworthy than loose pills in a bag, and that is precisely why it is used to reassure you. Packaging is a sales technique, not proof.
With a placebo or an underdose the effect fails to arrive and you go into withdrawal while believing you took your medication. That is confusing and dangerous, because people then take more. With counterfeits containing synthetic opioids such as nitazenes the opposite risk is greater: then a pill is far too strong and a single dose can be fatal.
No. One genuine delivery does not prove that later pills have the same origin or contents. The illegal market lacks verifiable dispensing through a doctor and pharmacy. Do not judge safety by reputation, packaging or a previous delivery.
Not because you are doing something wrong, but because the market you have ended up in does not work in your favour. The help page lists who you can call today.