The DEA recently seized several million dollars worth of heroin during a raid in New York City, and it’s just further proof that Uber can’t stay away from negative news. The $4 million worth of heroin and fentanyl seized by the DEA was all branded with Uber‘s name and logo, and frankly, I think this was an enormous missed opportunity for branding on the behalf of Lyft.
Just think about it. The dealer shows up at your doorstep and asks if you’re ready to get Lyfted. A user’s looking for a quick buzz so they dump a little bit of that white powder out for a Lyft. ‘Getting lifted’ has been a mainstream phrase for getting fucked up ever since Half Baked hit the big screen, and it was a phrase within drug-using circles for a lot longer before that. The Uber-Heroin connection here doesn’t make any sense at all, but the Lyft-Heroin combo makes all the sense in the world from a branding perspective.
According to Mashable, not only were the multi-millions worth of heroin and fentanyl branded with Uber’s logo, but one of the people arrested in the raid was also an Uber drive:
In their press release on the arrest, the DEA said:
…they observed defendant David Rodriguez, exiting the building carrying two boxes inside a large white shopping bag. David Rodriguez then got into the backseat of a black Honda Accord driven by Richard Rodriguez, an Uber driver.
After driving a few blocks, the car was pulled over by agents who found packages containing a substance they suspected to be a mixture of fentanyl and heroin, two substances that have been the main culprits in the current opioid crisis.
A subsequent search of the apartment from which agents saw David Rodriguez leave resulted in the discovery of:
two large ziplock bags containing approximately three kilograms of a suspected fentanyl and heroin combination from inside a hall closet, as well as 1,100 individual dose glassine envelopes that had been filled with powder and stamped with the brand name “UBER.”
There was also $30,000 in cash, a handgun, and a load of drug paraphernalia agents said was “consistent with a heroin/fentanyl packaging mill.” via
It wasn’t all Uber though. Throughout the huge bust, the feds found heroin and fentanyl branded with the Animal Planet logo, McDonald’s logo, The Walking Dead, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and more.
To this day, I still don’t have a clue how much heroin costs. I don’t know if $4 million worth of heroin is a shit ton of heroin, or if it’s like a week’s worth for regular users. THe only time I’ve ever seen the prices of heroin discussed was in Pulp Fiction and that shit seemed expensive AF compared to other drugs…This seems like a lot, though, right? Any quantity of drugs in the millions is a shit ton, as far as I’m concerned. (h/t Mashable)