Party drugs racket busted
A SOPHISTICATED drug operation capable of producing 2000 party pills an hour has been halted by police, ahead of the drug dealers’ lucrative summer festival period.
Wellington police raided an inner- city factory on Friday night, arresting three 22- yearold men and seizing materials used for making MDA pills, a class A drug more potent than ecstasy.
Detective Senior Sergeant Tim Leitch said it was a ‘‘full-scale commercial operation’’.
Items seized included powder, pills, chemicals, equipment and a pill press police believe was used to manufacture ecstasy.
‘‘We believe it was set up to distribute thousands of pills at upcoming music festivals over the New Year period.’’
The factory was secured on Friday night and specialist police laboratory staff and ESR scientists were still examining the scene yesterday.
It was too early to know the full scope of the operation, but Leitch said it would have been ‘‘significant’’.
‘‘They were in the process of setting themselves up and certainly they have got the capacity and capability to develop into a significant commercial enterprise.
‘‘We think we’ve nipped them in the bud and got them in the infancy of the set-up process. We think they were still in their development stage, perfecting their product.’’
He said the high- potency drugs were intended for supply at music festivals over summer.
‘‘Our fear was they were going to get up and running and produce some significant quantities for the New Year’s Eve festivals at various places around the country.’’
The three 22- year- old men from the Hutt Valley and Wellington appeared in the Wellington District Court yesterday on serious drug charges. They were held in custody and will reappear in court to face a judge on Monday.
Leitch said the men were part of a high- tech wave of drug entrepreneurs.
‘‘You do need to spend money to purchase the equipment and you need a degree of expertise, so it’s a combination of knowledge and money. They’ve been charged with manufacturing MDA, and that’s the class A version of ecstasy – we don’t actually come across it very often.
‘‘It’s a press that can produce 1500-2000 pills an hour, so if you run it for a few hours a day you are producing a lot of product.’’