1994 SPECIAL REPORT: “CHINA CAT HEROIN.. NYC“

They call it China Cat, an exotic name for a blend of heroin so pure it promised a perfect high, but instead killed 13 people in five days. The victims included a piano tuner from TriBeCa and a man found dead in his Upper East Side apartment. Although they came from all across Manhattan, the police say they believe all the victims bought the heroin where undercover officers bought it, on the Lower East Side. The latest body was discovered on Monday in midtown near a railroad track bed with sloping hills on either side. The man, in his 40’s, was found on 51st Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner’s Office. The area, dense with ferns, pine scrubs and abandoned tires, is frequented by homeless people, some passers-by said yesterday. “We believe this person fits the pattern of deaths we’ve been looking at,“ Ms. Borakove said. Yesterday, as the Medical Examiner continued to run tests on the bodies, all of them male, investigators fanned out through the drug netherworld of the Lower East Side. They searched for the suppliers of the potent drug and tried to warn users -- especially first-timers, who have less tolerance -- of its dangers. The authorities said yesterday that it appeared to be one of the worst cases of multiple overdoses in recent years. In 1991, 17 people died in the New York area after they bought a synthetic drug being sold as heroin under the brand name of Tango and Cash. But in the four recent cases on which the Medical Examiner has received toxicology reports so far, the killer was not a synthetic heroin but the real thing, just much more potent than that usually sold on the streets.