Cash, guns and drugs seized in mega-money ‘Breaking Bad’ lab raids
FOUR ARRESTED AFTER SWOOPS ON MULTI-MILLION POUND ‘STREET BENZOS’ RACKET
TWO Breaking Bad-style labs have been discovered in an operation to smash a gang’s multi-million pound racket in supplying deadly fake prescription drugs.
Four suspects were arrested, and cash, drugs and guns seized in dawn raids yesterday.
The move comes after a lengthy investigation into the supply of counterfeit prescription drugs, some of which are thought to have been sold on the streets of Cheetham Hill and the Strangeways area of Bury New Road.
Police carried out raids at nine addresses in Swinton, Seedley, Pendlebury and Wigan.
Two labs for making benzodiazepines – known as ‘street benzos’ – were in premises in Albion Street, Swinton, and a semi-rural house in Lower Green Lane, Astley.
Highly-sophisticated equipment had been installed in both labs and it’s believed the gang had been making the drugs for a couple of years in the Astley location – and more recently at Swinton as demand grew.
Substitute chemicals for the drugs, which sell for 50p each, are thought to have been sourced in China.
A senior police officer said the seizures, after Operation Mayfly, a threemonth investigation including a surveillance operation, was of ‘huge significance’ in terms of disrupting a key supply line.
It is estimated that each lab had the capacity to produce 200,000 tablets an hour.
Det Chief Insp, James Faulkner, of GMP’s Serious Organised Crime Unit, said: “Today is the culmination of three months work in relation to the illicit production of and supply of counterfeit class C drugs, predominantly, benzodiazepine. That is linked to a wider operation, Operation Cranium, which is to counter the threat from Cheetham Hill, of counterfeit goods and drugs. There is illicit counterfeit medicines being sold in those areas. I can hazard an educated guess that the volume of drugs produced in this operation it is almost certain that some of them will have landed up on the streets of Manchester and Cheetham Hill in particular, but we can’t at the moment link them scientifically at the moment.” He added: “We do know from intelligence that there were orders for pills from these two labs in the millions. We recently intercepted a haul of drugs on their way to Scotland – 2.6m tablets were seized. It would appear they were producing tablets to order.
“On the face of it, it would appear both labs were making the same products. It is counterfeit diazepam. The 2.6m were seized were counterfeit benzodiazepines – street benzos. They are made with a drug called etizolam, which is a substitute for benzodiazepine. The drugs were recovered in the seizure were of reasonable quality. But they were made with this substitute which they source via China and other routes.
“We suspect they have been operating, particularly from the Clover Cottage site (Astley) for a couple of years. The pills sell for between 50p and a pound, so it is staggering sums of money that is being made.”
Four men, aged 42 to 77, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to supply class C drugs. A 42-year-old was also further arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Around £20,000 in cash and assets including Rolex and Omega watches worth approximately £30,000 were seized, along with three firearms and ammunition taken from an address on Lower Green Lane in Astley. The guns were found in a shipping container next to the Astley premises. One of the guns is a bolt-action rifle, the others are handguns.
As reported in the M.E.N, a huge black market for illicit prescription drugs, centred around Bury New Road in Strangeways, sprung up during lockdown.