Winnipeg-based dealers and users continue to buy and sell deadly opioids through secret Facebook Messenger apps — despite the fact Facebook administrators were alerted to the groups more than two weeks ago.

"It's pathetic and silly," cyber security expert Daniel Tobok told the CBC. "[Facebook administrators] really don't care. It's a shame."

On Nov. 14, the CBC revealed that Winnipeg's drug scene was using the secret group conversations to score everything from crack cocaine to fentanyl. Facebook administrators at the time vowed to investigate.

Daniel Tobok, CEO of Cyntelligence, says more needs to be done to prevent the drug trade from playing out on social media like Facebook's messenger app. (Supplied/Daniel Tobok) But while the group's names have since changed, it's otherwise business as usual. In recent days, group members have offered up everything from hydromorphine (for $60 each) to "killer coke." In most cases, a single click on the messenger's profile image sends one directly to a Facebook profile. Sometimes, cellphone numbers are posted.

Despite the fact the players involved are "hiding in plain sight," experts agree that even Facebook administrators have a tough time sniffing them out and shutting them down.

The groups are so secretive that a person won't find them in any search. They're accessible by invitation only and only through a Facebook account. Group administrators also shut them down and reopen them under new names several times a month, meaning anyone trying to hunt them down faces an online game of cat and mouse, Tobok said.

Furthermore, with more than 1.7 billion Facebook users, combing through their chat activity is a mammoth task. But not, Tobok said, impossible.

"They're like a landlord in a flea market," he said. "Unless somebody's complaining somebody's selling counterfeit or criminal-type products, they don't want to be bothered."

The CBC contacted Facebook's administration for comment. At press time, they have not yet responded.