The lab had the capacity to produce up to 200 kgs a day. (Representational image)
The biggest cocaine lab in Europe has been destroyed by a team of Spanish police officers as part of a significant drug bust operation. At a highly advanced, international facility that produces the drug, authorities have detained 18 people.
Guardianreported that teams of Colombian and Mexican experts are working around the clock at the cocaine lab to produce up to 200 kilograms of the drug a day.
As well as making several arrests on the mainland and on the island of Gran Canaria, police officers from Spain’s Policia Nacional force, together with counterparts in Portugal and Colombia, also seized 151 kg of processed cocaine and 1,300 kg of cocaine base paste.
Policia Nacional said on Friday, “The mega-laboratory, which is located in Pontevedra province, never stopped its activities, with its ‘cooks’ working 24-hour shifts, preparing the base paste to be converted into cocaine hydrochloride.” Are.”
“The now-disbanded criminal organization was highly sophisticated, and its members – whose various duties were well organized – employed strong security measures, such as using aliases, using fake vehicles, disguising themselves as truck drivers, disguise, and using a strict communication protocol.”
According to a news agency report reuters, Cocaine use is on the rise across Europe, an EU-wide wastewater study showed on Wednesday, with the highest levels of residues found in Belgium, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
The largest study to date, carried out by the Lisbon-based European Drug Monitoring Agency EMCDDA, analyzed daily wastewater in the catchment areas of treatment plants serving approximately 54 million people in 104 European cities.
It analyzed samples collected over a one-week period between March and April last year for traces of cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA/ecstasy, ketamine and cannabis and found that drug use was higher than previous studies. Was.
“Today’s findings, from a record 104 cities, paint a picture of a drug problem that is both widespread and complex, with all six substances detected in almost every location,” EMCDDA director Alexis Goosdiel said in a statement.
The results showed a “sustained increase in cocaine detections”, a trend seen since 2016, with more cities reporting traces of methamphetamine, also known as crystal meth.
More than half of the 66 European cities with data for 2021 and 2022 reported an increase in cocaine residues.
(with inputs from Reuters)