In 2024, the National Police has dismantled four designer drug laboratories (three MDMA or ecstasy laboratories and one synthetic cannabinoid laboratory), a number that may be “anecdotal,” according to police sources, but which investigators see as a “sign” that organizations are moving to Spain. “They bring the drug half-finished, with previous steps, such as MDMA or ecstasy oil, to the drug store, where they are able to obtain the drug in a “conventional” manner. speed “And here they finish cooking it,” explains Chief Inspector Alejandro Martín-Blas, head of the synthetic drugs section of the National Police. The ingredients for making these drugs, called precursors, do not attract as much attention as a bag of small pink pills or a packet of cocaine. They cross borders, often from China or India, as legal tender products such as wax or dye pigments, and leave the laboratory converted into synthetic drugs.
The Guardia Civil has also noticed an increase in facilities where organisations give the final touch to substances, either encapsulation, the manufacture of pills or the addition of some excipient, explains a brigadier from the drugs group of the Technical Unit of the Judicial Police. They call them second-hand manufacturing laboratories. “We have already found several,” says the brigadier. In recent months they have dismantled at least two large synthetic drug laboratories, one in Navarra and recently another in Granollers (Barcelona).
Synthetic drugs represent a small part of total trafficking in the EU, but experts are drawing attention to their expansion and dangerous effects on health. Ecstasy accounted for 2.1% of drug trafficking in Europe in 2022 and methamphetamine or crystal, 1.4%. However, in recent years methamphetamine seizures have been increasing, according to the latest European report on drugs, last June. “Methamphetamine was a threat, but now it is a reality,” says Martín-Blas, who has been specializing in synthetic drugs for 17 years. This substance can cause very serious neuropsychiatric disorders in a very short time. Experts classify it as one of the most destructive, only behind heroin and crack.
Two years ago, the bulk of methamphetamine laboratories were in the Czech Republic (202 of the 242 dismantled), followed by the Netherlands (14) and Bulgaria (12). In Spain, the dismantling of one of them was reported. “Large-scale methamphetamine production is already established in Europe,” the authors of the European report agree. “In principle, it seems that production is intended for markets outside the EU,” they add. But this circumstance creates the risk that consumption will become more common, if conditions are met. The latest official figures available from Spain, from 2022, showed a 16% increase in methamphetamine seizures. speed (amphetamine sulfate) and 28% in methamphetamine powder or rock, and a 26% drop in MDMA-ecstasy units compared to the previous year. The drug is produced, circulated and consumed. “Wherever it goes, there is always something left behind,” adds Martín-Blas. The countries that manufacture the most synthetic drugs are the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland. The markets for these drugs, which are usually consumed by young people at parties or in bars, are:birds from Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom or Spain.
The bulk of precursors for the manufacture of synthetic drugs are banned. The lists are constantly updated thanks to the flow of information between health and police authorities in different countries and with bodies such as the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) or the EU Drugs Monitoring Centre. But criminal networks are constantly changing formulas or using alternative ingredients, forcing the machinery to be restarted. At the end of 2023, the EU was monitoring more than 950 psychoactive substances, 26 of which were reported for the first time.
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There is such a variety of synthetic drugs, often with several names, English names or abbreviations of compounds, that it is easy to get lost. A small sample of those found by researchers is MDMA or ecstasy (usually in the form of a colorful pill with striking shapes or in crystal), which has an invigorating effect and increases perception through the senses, especially touch. There is also methamphetamine, which comes in the form of powder or small rock, similar to quartz, and has a very powerful stimulant effect, or 2CB, which is a kind of pink powder. “2CB is a substance that belongs to the same family as ecstasy, but it has a hallucinogenic effect similar to that of LSD,” explains Claudio Vidal, state director of Energy Control, an organization that for 27 years has sought to help people who consume drugs to manage their use in the least risky way possible. “It is often confused with tusi, which is a pink powder containing ketamine and MDMA, when they are two completely different things.” Tusi is also called pink cocaine, even though it does not contain cocaine. According to the researchers, this name is due to a sales strategy to promote it at exclusive private parties, thus raising the price.
According to Vidal, one cause for concern is the presence of ecstasy tablets on the market with very high doses, which can put those who do not divide their consumption, as advised, at risk of overdose. Another is the possible adulteration, which in the case of ecstasy is “minority”, although when it occurs, substances called synthetic cathinones are involved, which have appeared so recently that there is hardly any information. “Methamphetamine is present only in certain population groups, although this does not mean that it is not a cause for concern, because it is,” adds the director of Energy Control.
Preventive training on fentanyl
One of the drugs that the National Police’s synthetic drug investigators have been most frequently asked about in recent months is fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid drug that causes 70,000 deaths a year in the US. “There is no fentanyl trade in Spain,” insists the chief inspector. However, as a preventive measure, his agents have received various training courses, one of them from Mexican police officers, to learn the forms of presentation and use and how to handle this substance, in the event that they find it in an intervention.
Camouflage of laboratories
Synthetic drug laboratories are usually hidden in basements, industrial warehouses or camouflaged next to kitchens, like the one dismantled next to a grill in Madrid, with thousands of containers, substances in bags and expensive machinery.
The images of the police operations reflect clandestine activity, with no safety or hygiene measures, as in many cases the drums can be seen placed on the floor in rooms with peeling paint on walls or surrounded by numerous products.
These drug traffickers choose remote spaces to locate their kitchens. They want to avoid being given away by the chemical smell of the products and also to control whoever approaches, whether it be police or other organizations interested in robbing them. They usually have between six and eight people working there, according to police estimates. Another feature of these facilities is the instability of the precursors and the risk of being exposed by a fire, as happened in Morón de la Frontera (Seville), when a complete synthetic cannabinoid laboratory came to light, similar to a pilot plant of a chemical company.
Increasingly, they are run by people with deep knowledge of chemistry, many of them from the Netherlands, although the profiles are changing and the nationalities of those who make up the gangs are as varied as the transnational nature of drug trafficking.
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