A Missouri mom has shared her horror after finding fentanyl inside the packaging of a Barbie doll — as police recovered five similar dolls in the area.
Jade Adams purchased one of five Barbie dolls sold at Cargo Largo, a discount store in Independence, about 10 miles east of Kansas City, that authorities say had a suspicious powder hidden inside the packaging.
Adams told WDAF she and her husband were shocked when the powder exploded after they opened the toy in their car.
As he opened the plastic packaging with a knife, “it was like poof in the car,” she told the outlet. “We were like, ‘What is that?’”
The mom was beside herself, thinking about what could have happened had it been her child who opened the package, telling the outlet that it was “terrifying” to imagine.
“They could have dusted that all over themselves, their house, wherever they opened it,” Adams said. “Like, it’s not just me, it’s really just the kids for me. That’s my baby, that’s my last baby, that’s terrifying.”
Adams said her mom returned to the store to warn workers of the dangerous drug she had found attached to the doll.
“She went to Cargo Largo and was like, ‘You need to get these Barbies; you need to get all these Barbies,” Adams said. “So, they filled a whole cart up of these Barbies and took them to security and were like, ‘You need to check all of these Barbies.’”
The Independence Police Department took to Facebook on Saturday to warn local shoppers about the impacted Barbies — and alert people that they were on the hunt for five impacted dolls.
After workers at the store were notified about the suspicious powder, they called the police, who determined that the substance was fentanyl.
It was determined that five Barbie dolls with fentanyl inside the packaging had been sold, police said.
However, all of the impacted Barbie dolls were recovered within a matter of hours.
The investigation “revealed the Barbie Dolls themselves were not compromised. Fentanyl was discovered taped inside the back packaging of the dolls,” police said in an update.
“There is no reason to believe compromised units were sent to other retailers and no injuries have been reported,” the police added in their update.
The incident remains under investigation by police.
