Meet Drug Mule Barbie.
A horrified mom found fentanyl in the packaging of a Barbie she picked up at a Midwest discount store — making the dangerous discovery while unboxing the beloved doll to give to their daughter.
Jade Adams, of suburban Kansas City, Mo., picked up the innocent-seeming item at Cargo Largo, a bargain retailer in the town of Independence, near her home. Adams told Fox 4 that when taking the doll out of its wrapper, the potentially lethal powder exploded all over her and her husband.
“It was like ‘poof’ in the car,” Adams told the outlet. “We were like, what is that?”
Local authorities confirmed that multiple Barbies sold by the outlet contained secret stashes of the often-lethal drug.
Adams continued that it was “terrifying” to imagine what could have happened had it been her child who had opened the doll’s packaging, adding that they could have “dusted that all over themselves, their house, wherever they opened it.”
“Like, it’s not just me, it’s really just the kids for me,” Adams added to WDAF. “That’s my baby, that’s my last baby, that’s terrifying.”
She noted that her mother subsequently returned to the store to warn the employees of what she and her husband had found — who then gathered up the remaining Barbies and took them to store security.
In a statement posted to Facebook on Saturday, March 21, the police department of Independence, Missouri told the community that the Caro Lago security team had alerted them to a “suspicious powder substance located in the packaging of a Barbie doll.”
“IPD’s investigation revealed the Barbie Dolls themselves were not compromised,” said the statement. “Fentanyl was discovered taped inside the back packaging of the dolls.”
“There is no reason to believe compromised units were sent to other retailers and no injuries have been reported,” the post continued.
The department later updated their statement that the final package of the five affected toys sold had been secured.
The Barbies were reportedly sold between March 19 and March 20.
