Are crooks placing fentanyl laced blue tape on car fuel tank doors? Fact Check

A rumour on social media claims that criminals are placing blue “painter’s” tape across the door to a gas tank (petrol tank) of a victim’s car, and the tape is laced with the drug fentanyl and removing it will likely kill a victim.

FALSE

The rumour is spreading primarily on Facebook, and an example of it can be seen below.

If you find tape like this on your car do not take it off with your hands it is laced with fentanyl and will kill you ….. People please be very safe there are a lot of crazies out there ready to do bad things to anyone for no reason this world is not the same

Scarelore often appears to ramp up in the latter months of the year, especially as Halloween approaches, and just like other examples, this claim doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

Firstly, despite the claim that criminals are placing fentanyl laced blue tape across car fuel tank, there are no such reports of such crimes occurring. We always watch out for police reports or reputable media accounts matching the crime described in the warning, but came up short.

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We traced the rumour back to a Facebook user called Mark Alva, who posted a photo (above) showing the offending tape on his car in September 2021. And it’s within the comments section where we can see a possible reason why many of these scarelore “this-is-what-criminals-are-doing-now” type posts come to fruition. Soon after the Facebook post was initially published by Alva, another Facebook user – apparently related to Alva – noted that the tape had been actually put there by a local carwash company. That Facebook user even posted their own photo (below) of blue tape on their own car after frequenting the same car wash.

This would certainly seem to add up. It is common practise for carwash companies to tape the more delicate parts of a car with tape (such as the fuel tank door and wiper blades) to prevent damage to those parts within the automated machinery of the carwash itself. This article on TapeManBlue.com goes into more detail why carwash facilities choose blue tape specifically on cars.

And given that the comments show that there is indeed a carwash facility that uses blue tape in the vicinity of the person who began this rumour (in California according to the publicly available location information) it seems this is the far more convincing explanation. (Note that the Facebook user who originally started this rumour offered no reason or evidence or sources as to why they believed the tape was laced with fentanyl.)

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Secondly, while fentanyl is a real and dangerous opiod, there is no shortage of alarmist information spreading about its dangers – often fuelled by erroneous media reporting – and much of that information has no factual basis, including the spurious claim that brief skin contact with fentanyl will make you ill or – in the case of the rumour – kill you.

Ryan Marino, a doctor and toxicologist who often uses social media to promote accurate information about the dangers of fentanyl as well as debunk the more alarmist rumours, says on Twitter –

‘The only way to overdose on fentanyl is from injecting, snorting or some other way of ingesting it. You cannot overdose from secondhand contact.’ #WTFentanyl

Marino has debunked the claim that skin contact with fentanyl can cause and overdose, addition or even death numerous times using his hashtag #WTFentanyl.

Additionally, medically reviewed literature on the website of drug and alcohol rehabilitation center SpringBoard Recovery reads –

Rest assured, it is virtually impossible for someone to absorb enough fentanyl through their skin to cause a serious overdose simply by touching it.
Medical professionals and scientists alike all confirm that not enough of the drug can be absorbed in this manner to create a life-threatening emergency such as an opioid overdose. Unfortunately, this is a myth that has circulated in the media for some time, and, unfortunately, continues to do so.

Similar nonsensical rumours previously claimed criminals were lacing the handles of shopping carts with fentanyl.

There is no evidence (or reason) or scientific merit to these claims, and we rank them false.

Watch out for similarly themed and equally spurious carjacking claims including criminals placing plastic bottles in car wheel-wells, attaching paper fliers to lure motorists from their cars, attaching drug laced $100 bills to lure motorists from their cars, attaching zip ties to lure motorists from their cars and even using coins to jam car door handles.