0 seymour hoffman's death. we're going to go inside one of the most elite and expensive drug treatment centers in the united states. it's pretty incredible access. you won't believe how these people get treated for the rich and celebrity famous. that's tomorrow "erin burnett outfront." meantime, anderson starts now. good evening, everyone. tonight we're on a red hot money trail and covering how global thieves turn your stolen credit cart data into cash, lots of it. you won't believe how easy it is and hear how they are stealing it from you. snow warnings, freezing rain and catastrophic ice alerts what 120 million americans are facing right now tonight. wait until you hear about the storm that's right behind it. we begin tonight with new developments in the death of actor philip seymour hov of of -- hoffman. this afternoon mimi o'donnell visit add funeral home on the upper east side. a private funeral service is being planned for family and close friends with a memorial service planned for later this month. tonight investigators are still pulling together the details of hoffman's death sunday from an apparent heroin overdose. it's already becoming clear that the former addict who had been clean for so long may have been on a downward spiral for some time. jason carroll has the latest. >> reporter: investigators tonight are looking at surveillance tapes to help piece together what happened before hoffman's death. they are already reviewing one tape from here, the standard grill in new york's trendy meat packing district, where hoffman had brunch late saturday morning, sitting at this table with two people. no security cameras at dagostino's supermarket up the street from one of hoffman's apartments in the west village. this is where a legislatorsment source says he withdrew $1200 from an atm. in six different transactions saturday night. a witness telling investigators he saw hoffman there around 8:00 p.m. while talking to two men weari we wearing mess enger bags. his former partner mimi o'donald has been questioned, once o'donald discovered hoffman was abecausing drugs, she allegedly told him he had to stay at a second apartment in the west village, not with their children. how long had hoffman been on a downward spiral? it seems quite some time judge frlg people who recently came in contact with him. >> he was fallow. his face seemed to be pock-marked. he looked tired, had bags under his eye. >> this journalist is still haunted by hoffman's physical appearance after he saw him at party at last month's sundance film festival in utah. this is hoffman's picture from sundance. the journalist said he didn't even recognize him, disturb not just by how the actor looked but by what he said. >> he said you don't recognize me. at that point i said, well, should i know you? and he said, well, i'm a heroin addict. and at that point seeing the shock and awe on my face he took off his cap. and i immediately recognized him and said oh, you're philip seymour hoffman one of my favorite actors. at that point he said bingo. but as he was walking off he said i gist got out of rehab i think it was a cry for help. >> jason, what do we know at this point about the medical examiner? are they any closer to issuing a toxicology report? >> reporter: they're doing exactly what they need to do. but also remember in addition to all of the heroin that they found there, they also found several bottles of prescription drugs. the muscle relaxant, anti-anxiety medication. so there's a lot of testing for a lot of different substances that have to be done. and before that can all be accomplished, it may take some time. so we're still waiting for that. we've been reaching out to the medical examiner's office about the autopsy report, about the toxicology report and what we keep getting back, anderson, is that it's just going to take some time. >>y jason, thanks. joining me is a -- studied heroin use and addiction for decades. a former undercover d.e.a. agent and police consultant. rick, the heroin that you find here in no, nobody knows more about heroin in new york than you do. you've been studying this for a long time. you and i went out to heroin shooting galleries in the late 90s. it's not just heroin. what is mixed in it? >> who knows? there's many different things mixed in it, including inert ingredients, ingredients that have some effect on the users. but most of the dealers don't actually know what's in it. >> and the purity of it, is it very pure? >> that varies considerably as well. in targets the dealers, it's to their advantage to vary the purity to maximize their profits. they'll put out a very strong bag on monday and by friday it's very weak. >> why do they do that? >> to maximize their profits. on the first day if it has a good reputation of being strong it will attract all the users. all the users come, they'll put out a lousy product to make more money that way. >> and this brand name, apparently some of the drugs that were found in hoffman's -- -- the bags were stamped in a brand name. you've actually brought in a lot of bags, hundreds of bags you have collected over the years. we've got some pictures of it. there's no heroin obviously in any of these bags left. but they all have stamps on them with different names. why does a dealer stamp them? >> well, to identify it as his or her product. and normally they'll have two or three products. so if you actually go online and you look up the product that he was reputed to have been found with, it's there online. and you will see the other products that are affiliated with that stamp are also named online. >> and michael, in your experience does -- if somebody o.d.s from a certain brand name, does that brand name become more popular on the streets? >> absolutely. this goes all the way back to the years when i was working the street and buying heroin. i bought i want to say thousands, but if it's not over thousands it's close to it. and i bought heroin from one particular man who i arrested who ran a cutting place. and he became an informant. and one of the things he told me that rang true for the rest of my career was that he intentionally had filled bags with super doses, hoping someone would o.d. and die. my bet is that right now the ace of spades brand that allegedly -- i say allegedly killed mr. hoffman is now hot. on the street everyone is looking for that brand. >> so the idea is that if it killed you or killed somebody who's using then it's really strong and other people who are addicted want it. >> correct the and other dealers will go out and make a similar brand name to put out on the street as a knockoff product. >> they'll do a knock you have counterfeit of this brand. >> you have to get the psychology of the drug addict. i had the unfortunate experience of having a brother who began shooting heroin at age 15. and at one point, we got him into programs and then he was living with me at home in rockland county on the methadone program. and being a narcotic agent, i saw immediately he was back on heroin. we had the following conversation. i said, david, you're young. you're handsome. you're talented. why? and he said, you know, i probably want to die. but i don't have the nerve to do it. well, a few years later he did have the nerve. he put a bullet to his head and wrote a note to my family and friends. i can't stand the drugs anymore. now, the lesson learned is that a drug addict's psychology, most of the ones whom i've ran with, i used as informants, i dealt with, lived with, had a similar feeling. i got that. i wafted off them this closeness to death. and it's something that has to be considered in the seymour hoffman case. from all his statements he was saying and how he was quoted up to this point, he eerily reminds me of my brother. >> rick, you've interviewed thousands of addicts and users over the years. what is the initial appeal? >> the drug makes you feel good. i mean, that's the appeal. anybody that's ever had surgery and taken the pain relief drugs note action of that stuff. >> but at a certain point my understanding of usie using you don't get that same feeling anymore. >> but you get sick if you don't use it. for those people it's a medicine for them. for us in the harm reductions community we want to make sure they don't kill themselves. so we're doing what we can to keep people alive. frankly what we think we need here in new york is a safe injection facility. >> which they have in other cities. >> in vancouver and other cities abroad. but it saves lives. and it's sensible public health policy. >> the other thing you're working on is training addicts to -- >> overdose prevention. >> explain that. >> we train people -- obviously if you overdose you can't counter act the overdose yourself because you're unconscious. we train people in buddy systems. >> to shoot up with somebody else. >> not to shoot up with somebody else, to counter act the effects of somebody else shooting up. for example, i went and got trained. i don't use heroin. i don't shoot it up. but i went and got trained so i'll know what to do in case i see somebody i do know. the doctor or doctor assistants who do the training actually can and do prescribe the nelaxone with you. >> that can bring somebody back. >> it does. it's happened many times at our programs where we counter acted the overdose. >> if hoffman had been with somebody else, somebody also using or not and that person. >> who had the nelaxone drug. so we give them the training. we provide them with the overdose antidote drug. >> michael, in terms of police investigation, will they be able to now try to track down where this batch of heroin came from? >> possibly. this what is fascinates me. because i've been on these kind of investigations. and now you have a media person. so there is a drive to indict and identify the person who gave or sold the drugs to mr. hoffman to be indicted. again, because he's high profile media person. >> right. >> this is going to take in the first place informants on the street. i understand there's video of mr. hoffman. so i can assure you they're out in the area banging on informants, trying to find out who in that area is selling this. >> there's no mess enger services though in new york. >> it sounds to me as the report i heard earlier they saw somebody with messenger bags. there's delivery service for these things today. so just because you get somebody who put the drug in his hand doesn't -- i mean, technically that's the dealer. but that's just the messenger boy. that is going to serve the public interest to bag the messenger boy? i don't think so. >> it's the beginning of the investigation. one of the areas of my exper tees is what they call blind mule defense. that is people who claim that i didn't know what was in the bag. i didn't know what was in the car. this is what happens. if you get the delivery person, he is going to almost certainly claim i didn't know what was in it. >> a lot of the stuff is produced from a central place and distributed. >> the delivery services vary considerably in their size and complexity. there are some that do it on their own and other large organizations that have 401 k plans. that's a sizeable organization. >> i appreciate both your expertise. thank you so much. important discussion. follow me at twitt twitter @andersoncooper. use #ac 360. from homeless junk any to suburban mom. next. plus how the thieves of your credit card information turn the data into cold hard cash. welcome back. how is everything?