This year, more drug labs have been discovered in Brabant. The police found an illegal laboratory in at least 23 places. It mainly concerned speed, ecstasy and GHB. As far as Friesland, Brabant ‘cooks’ were busy with drugs, sometimes with fatal consequences. Brabant is and will remain a national leader in the production of synthetic drugs.
One time it was a GHB lab, just with a saucepan in a bedroom, such as on the Frans Heijlaertsplein in Breda. Then again, chemicals were simmering in a house on the Carel Willinkstraat in Eindhoven, but suddenly the ecstasy lab caught fire.
Labs were everywhere and nowhere: in a horse stable, also discovered by fire, in November in Baarle-Nassau. It was hidden in sheds in Oeffelt, Vessem and Eindhoven, but also in houses in residential areas in Waalwijk, Dongen, Odiliapeel, Hoeven and Bergen op Zoom.
Numbers
There are twelve labs in the west of the province. The East Brabant unit does not want to share the concrete figures until later. But there the police counted more than last year’s ten: at least eleven. In all, at least 23 labs were found in Brabant. Against 17 last year, but that was an exceptionally ‘quiet’ year, possibly due to the encrochat successes and the corona crisis.
Reliable national figures on the total number of labs are not yet available. Everything indicates that it exceeds seventy.
Speed
As always, amphetamine (speed) was made the most in Brabant. Ecstasy and GHB were also in full production: these are the two types of drugs with which Brabant always leads the way nationally. There was hardly any meth production in the news in Brabant this year.
Mega labs were missing this year. The lab in Baarle was large. The coke lab at Steenbergen was almost industrial, with ten Colombians living inside the warehouse and able to work shifts.
Friesland
A trend that has been visible for years: Brabant criminals who build their factories far from home. The police sees it as an extension of the working area and not a waterbed effect.
A sad example was a lab that exploded in Haule (Friesland) at the end of May. An Eindhoven resident died in the process. A fellow townsman was severely mutilated. About 220 kilometers from home.
In Office Delden (Overijssel) led an underground lab to Brabanders. Just like with a lab in Lottum in Limburg and Sint Maartensdijk in Zeeland.
Dumping and discharges
Drug waste was found less: from Woensdrecht to Westerbeek, blue barrels lay along the side of the road. Several dozen cases were reported. Some special finds, such as a box truck in the middle of Zundert with 3800 liters of chemical substances. And in Kruisland a burning car with 150 barrels and jerry cans. There are indications that more is being discharged into wells such as in Halsteren and Neerkant.
The number of cannabis farms is almost certainly lower again. It was almost 300 in 2021. This year’s figure is still unknown. Strangely enough, the power theft remains the same. Experts think they are well hidden, such as in a slurry pit in Boxtel or in a cellar in Tilburg.
Coke
Tons of coke poured in, especially through the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam. An outlier was Antwerp on October 20, with a container containing almost 8,000 kilos of coke, destined for an address in Flevoland. Perhaps the biggest find this year in Brabant was in Roosendaal in May: 899 kilos. Roughly 2000 kilos of coke destined for Brabant was in the news in 2022.
The intercepted drugs in Brabant have a value of many millions of euros. How many drugs ended up with the customer is always the big question.