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NEWS - Police Raid Drug Lab (NSW)

Psychadelic_Paisly

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Feb 10, 2003
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http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6776850%5E1702,00.html

Police raid drug lab

19jul03

POLICE have unearthed one of the largest ecstasy laboratories ever found in NSW in Wollongong.

Officers raided a house in Kenny Street at around 4.30pm (AEST) yesterday, discovering around 200 kilograms of chemicals.
The materials were estimated to be capable of producing 50 kilograms of ecstasy.

A 56-year-old Wollongong man was arrested and is expected to appear in Wollongong Local Court today




That poor, poor bastard. but damn that's a lot of eccy's! let's hope he was just a dodgy producer of K/Speed bombs hey.[
 
yeh i hope so aswell!!
does anyone think that this would have much of an impact of supply of pills??
 
Does anyone know how many actual MDMA labs have been raided in Australia?
I was under the impression that virtually all our mdma is sourced overseas.
"The materials were estimated to be capable of producing 50 kilograms of ecstasy."
They are making it sound like an mdma lab though, who fucking knows though, the media is so shit when it comes to drugs.
 
Absolutely not any effect on the supply. Why are all the old people getting raided?
 
there is no reason why there wouldnt be local mdma being made, its just as easy/difficult to get the precursors here as it is in the US. its probably just on a smaller frequency here. those green speckled fish are good candidates to be locally produced mdma..
 
^^ Agreed. And as import detections have increased it is to be expected more local organisations would be resorting to local production.
 
^^ No way the US, I was thinking though that it would be far more practical to import it from S.E. Asia, the corruption and organised crime there means sourcing the chems is much easier, so they can afford to sell it cheap. (just like whats happened with meth over there, flooding our markets)
I would thionk it would be much more cost effective to get a shitload from there, and just press the pills up here.
I don't know though, it's just that you never actually hear details of MDMA labs being busted, no mentions of the chems either, whereas you do all the time with local meth labs, every parent knows sudafed is more than just a decongestant ;)
 
^^ i didnt mean we get them locally and make them locally. we are like the US, they source things internationally and its no different here. like you said, importations coming from countries more accommodating to chemical purchases are where they are being made - it makes no difference where you live, the US or here, its just a different shipping country.
 
I've ended up getting the idea that 90% (a ballpark figure) of the world's MDMA is produced in Holland as their laws are less aggressive and let's face it, they're from amsterdam.
my outlook on it was crystal MDMA is shipped from holland where it is there cut down/pressed into pill form where it is then distributed around the world for us all to gobble up.
Then enter the local man and his cheap K/speed mix copies.
i know this is a generalisation but really, does it seem that far from the truth?
 
^lol I get ya now. (Cowboy Mac)

On a side note, I find it quite interesting that the organisations in S.E. Asia have moved into areas besides heroin, I've also read that eastern european countries (former eastern block ones, like Bulgaria) are getting involved in MDMA manufacture.
As in S.E. Asia with triad groups, corruption is rife and the Russian organised crime gangs have connections all the way up to the top.
When you also consider the historic sourcing of drugs from the Golden triangle and golden crescent, and the cocaine producing countries in South America, you can see that poor/developing nations have become the drug suppliers to the first world.
We've pretty much forced it upon them by pushing economic neo-liberalist policies upon them, and thereby destroying the economies we've claimed to be 'fixing'
If only more of the people involved in the manufacturing were as generous as Escobar was and built hospitals and schools for their people.
Better yet, legalise the drug trade and these countries will have a better chance at competing in this age of globalisation
=D
 
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The lab in 'gong was notorious for producing most of the shitty speed bombs to hit the sydney market in the last few years. One or two batches of good stuff came ouf of there, but i wouldnt expect it to have an affect on the amount of decent stuff available.

Also from what i have heard from various people over the years, i got the impression that most pills sold in australia were pressed locally from imported powder (apparently the powder is easier to import). I think you need a lisence to own a pill press in australia, but i know for a fact that 5T in sydney used to at least have access to one because of their connection with one of the larger triad gangs in cabramatta. Its not unreasonable to assume that other similar organisations also have their own presses, probably ocally assembled from imported parts.

And yes while traditionally the majority of pills in the gobal market were produced in europe (netherlands and germany), in the last few years se asian crime syndicates have seen a drop in heroin use while ecstacy moved into the spot light, its only natural that they would move into mdma production
 
Hmm, this and earlier articles say that the Woollongong lab was busted due to precursors being found.
http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/19/1058545628953.html

Police swoop on drug labs
By Candace Sutton
July 20 2003


The NSW Drug Squad is on a roll after swooping on five backyard drug laboratories in two weeks.

Police have uncovered methylamphetamine labs in Broken Hill, Tweed Heads, Guildford and Faulconbridge and on Friday swooped on the largest ecstasy manufacturing set-up detected in the state.

Acting Drug Squad commander Detective Inspector Paul Willingham anticipated further hauls in the coming weeks as ongoing investigations into drug labs come to fruition.

He would not say NSW police were winning the war on drugs, but said luck and helpful tip-offs from the public had given them momentum.

Following the arrest of a Newcastle man who was charged with making drugs in three motel rooms, police had launched a campaign with the NSW Hotels, Motels and Accommodation Association and the Australian Hotels Association to target an increase in mobile drug labs.


Inspector Willingham said the discovery of an ecstasy laboratory in the Blue Mountains on Friday had been sparked by a real estate agent noticing a strong chemical smell at a house he was renting.

He said: "We have a lot of different industry partnerships and investigation systems [and] while the different drug syndicates are not directly linked, they talk to each other, so often one job will lead to another."

Inspector Willingham said that apart from drug manufacture, backyard laboratories were environmentally hazardous and prone to explosion.

Last week a Guildford man alerted police after he allegedly feared he would explode from absorbing the amphetamines he was cooking up in his home laboratory.

Inspector Willingham said about six labs each year caught fire. To produce a kilogram of methylamphetamine, "90 to 100 litres of contaminated solvent and by-product gets tipped the drain or in the stormwater and enters the water table".

"Drug manufacturers use a lot of corrosive acids and all different compounds and dangerous goods in containers which can leak," he said.

"The message is out there for those cooking drugs. We will catch you."

Meanwhile, Dennis James Taylor was refused bail in Wollongong Court yesterday after he appeared on charges of knowingly taking part in the manufacture of a large commercial quantity of ecstasy.

Taylor, 56, a service station attendant, was allegedly the principal importer of sea-going containers of white oil from China.

The court heard that on July 9, customs officials went to a holding yard in Sydenham and checked 80 drums, six of which did not have seals.

Three of the drums contained methylamine, one drum contained white oil contaminated with methylamine and two drums contained safrole, which police said was a precursor chemical in the manufacture of ecstasy and comprised enough to make 120 kilograms of the drug.

On Friday, customs officers allegedly found a clandestine laboratory for the manufacture of ecstasy in a garage on Taylor's premises.

Taylor denied any knowledge of the laboratory, saying he "was leasing [the garage] to a man called John for $200 a week".

He said John was "conducting a process whereby oil was being extracted from cedar wood".

Police allege Taylor told them he was involved in the importation of the white oil, but denied knowledge of the drums containing methylamine and safrole.

Taylor will appear again in Wollongong Court tomorrow.
 
Last week a Guildford man alerted police after he allegedly feared he would explode from absorbing the amphetamines he was cooking up in his home laboratory.

At last, an explanation for spontaneous combustion ;)
 
Personally I think the majority of MDMA pills are imported from Holland/Europe and Asia somewhere. I think MD pills that are made here are the ones that weak, but contain MDXX, and there are alot of them around, I mean for months sometimes a full year. My guess is like the white versaces that were around a year or so ago.....too many different batches, good and bad ones, and those things were selling quite cheap compaired to others around that time.
 
Further evidence that once again it is the Chinese that are getting much of these precursors out to the world.

I guess no one in China would dare manufacture illicit drugs, but the manufacture/extraction of vast arrays of chemicals, many of them potential precursors, by "dodgy" chemical companies could well be rife.
Then they get moved along to places like Holland, SE Asia and now Australia.

I am not saying China is responsible for all of it, but I do know that at least a few years ago the Dutch MDMA producers were obtaining pure MD-P2P, MDMA's immediate precursor, from China's chemical industry. I guess it is the Dutch importation laws that were lax, meaning they could acquire the chemicals easily enough, and then move on from there.

(safrole-->isosafrole-->MD-P2P + methylamine --> MDMA)

Anyhow, now we have an Australian case where someone has imported precursor chemicals, again from China.
You have to wonder if the Burmese armies are obtaining all their ephedra or P2P to make their tonnes of methamphetamine from the Chinese too?

Interesting to say the least.
 
Also, as the chinese have always had something of a camphor industry, raw materials would be everywhere.

An interesting piece of history surrounds the Chinese and Japanese camphor industries and how they responded to various world events which affected this major commodity of the time.

Just prior to the turn of the 20th century a great deal of China's economy depended upon Camphor and its products. It had been this way for generations. After Japan's takeover of Formosa in 1895, Japan controlled the once held Chinese market, as Formosa was the main source of high camphor yielding trees. Japan produced incredible amounts of camphor and its oils up until WWII. The oils were used as fuels and were in almost as much demand as was the crystallised camphor. During this period the Japanese pharmaceutical industry was developed, in part as an effort to find new products from, and uses for camphor. 1937 saw Japan set up a pilot plant to produce synthetic camphor from pinene which turned out ~10,000 kg per annum.

The closing of WWII saw Formosa returned to the Chinese. The industry claw of the Japanese was relaxed and trade returned to poverty stricken Chinese farming communities. There had always been a great trading path associated with Chinese camphor. This involved one of the most organised yet possibly one of the strangest structured systems ever. Filled with corruption, mafia involvement in the camphor trade once regulated everything from the price paid to farmers and middlemen dealers, to the flow of Camphor into Hong Kong. Price fixing was rife, with false claims of shortages used to bump up prices. Without appreciating the incredible dependency placed on Camphor as an industry in the early part of the 20th century, it's hard to see how big a commodity it once was. Camphor distilleries were once spread throughout China, yet often within carrying distance of the forests. However, when Japan took Formosa, the initial shortage meant parts of trees were hauled great distances, and remote portable stills were made.

Despite China regaining its camphor industry post WWII, world demand for its products was declining as synthetics were rapidly replacing chemicals and products derived from camphor. Most affecting were naphthalene which replaced camphor, and petrochemicals which had largely replaced many of the uses of the oils. So the Chinese developed other products from the oils. It wasn't so much a discovering of new compounds, as much as finding new uses for the old camphor products. The *leftover* safrole was sold as Chinese Sassafras (sassafras at the time being in high demand for soap making and perfumery), and from blends of different fractions a synthetic eucalyptus oil was made. Another fraction of blue oils containing sesquiterpenes and alcohols was sold as lubricants.


So looking at the cultural, historical and economic importance that camphor once played in China, it's perhaps not that silly to think a strong infrastructure would probably still be in place to facilitate the relatively easy manufacture of MDP2P from the toxic waste product safrole. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some old family businesses, once producing large quantities of various camphor products are today instead focusing on a minor product -safrole - which has a large world market and leaves them untouchable in case of international persecution. I would even go as far as to say that it is possible government is aware of this and even supports it. Raw materials/ chemicals are not drugs so they wouldn't be feeling guilty. And don't forget the past tong-mafia association with the camphor trade. They are sure to still have their fingers in the pie ;)

Reference: E. Gunther Essential Oils Vol 3 pages 268-301
 
it sucks. this is in my home town and it is hard enough getting good pills now.

hope it's not going to get harder
 
I really doubt this will affect the market at all, I live right next to Guildford so it hit close to home for me too.
 
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