'Needle spiking' fears rise in Europe, but crime 'really difficult' to trace

[mahatmakanejeeves]

EUROPE

‘Needle spiking’ fears rise in Europe, but crime ‘really difficult’ to trace

By Adela Suliman and Ellen Francis
June 7, 2022 at 5:48 a.m. EDT

LONDON — She had eagerly looked forward to going home for the holidays and reuniting with friends over dinner and drinks. Instead, Eva Keeling, 19, says, she wound up injected by a stranger with a needle, leaving her unable to speak or function while at a bar in her hometown of Stafford, in northern England.

{snip}

Keeling is one of hundreds of people across Britain and Europe who have been victims of suspected “needle spiking” — an injection administered without consent or knowledge, often in a bar or nightclub setting, in an attack similar to the more common crime of contaminating alcoholic drinks.

Authorities are grappling with how to prove and combat this kind of hard-to-trace attack and are seeking to raise awareness about the small but growing number of reported cases.

[Rise in ‘needle spiking’ puts women in Britain on high alert]

French police have received more than 300 complaints of injections in various regions since the end of March but have not made arrests, according to local media reports. The victims — many of them women — often report suffering memory loss or noticing injuries only later. Neighboring Belgium has seen reports of similar incidents at a nightclub, a soccer game and a Pride festival.

{snip}

By Adela Suliman
Adela Suliman is a breaking-news reporter in The Washington Post's London hub. Twitter https://twitter.com/Adela_Suliman

By Ellen Francis
Ellen Francis is a reporter covering breaking news for The Washington Post in London. Twitter https://twitter.com/ellen_fra

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Now that it's been reported, it will start here in a few days.

The news is a script to some people .

[roamer65]

2. You got that right, sadly.