Validated, non-destructive and environmentally friendly determination of cocaine in euro bank notes

A non-destructive, fast and environmentally friendly procedure has been developed for cocaine determination in euro bank notes. Cocaine was extracted with 15 ml methanol by vortex agitation during 5 min. The extract was evaporated and reconstituted in 0.5 ml methanol. GC–MS–MS analysis was performed using as precursor ion m/z 182.2, with an excitation energy voltage of 1.60 eV, being the product ions measured m/z 150.2 and 82.0. A limit of detection of 0.15 ng per note and a repeatability of 6%, established from the relative standard deviation, of a 1 ng ml−1 level, were achieved. Recoveries of 101 ± 2 and 98 ± 3% were obtained for samples spiked with 100 and 10 μg respectively. Results show that all the euro bank notes measured (16 samples) were contaminated with cocaine in the range between 1.25 and 889 μg. Two different contamination levels, high level (150–889 μg) and low one (1.25–77 μg) were found and it could be related with the direct or indirect contact with the drug.