This year, more drug labs have been discovered in Brabant than last year, the figures even point to a ‘record year’. Crystal meth has never been so prominent in our province. Boilers are also getting bigger, even industrial.
The Zeeland-West Brabant unit is the only police region that is willing to provide figures on the number of finds: 20 labs, with an emphasis on West Brabant and a few in Zeeland. They call it ‘a significant increase’, compared to last year’s 14.
The East Brabant police say it is ‘a slight increase’. At least 11 labs were reported in the news, compared to 11 last year. So there must be at least 12 now.
This brings the number close to the ‘record year’ 2020. At that time, the number of Brabant labs was 31. It is certain that Brabant remains the leader of all provinces. But these drug factories also appear more often in the north and east of the Netherlands. At least 120 labs have been discovered nationwide.
A few things stood out in Brabant this year.
Mega boilers
The boilers and labs are getting bigger and bigger. The ‘bakery lab’ on the Ettensebaan in Breda this summer had a capacity of about 3000 liters. The lab that was discovered on the Broekdijk in Hulten also contained a huge boiler estimated at 3,000 liters or more, but details are still lacking. And the labs in Willemstad and Heijningen were also ‘industrial’ with a capacity of almost 3000 liters.
That is big, even by Brabant standards. But not a national record because in Gelderland the police found a 5,000 liter boiler this fall.
Meth
Crystal meth could be made in the ‘bakery lab’, just like in two drug labs that were discovered in Oud Gastel. In addition, the police found traces of meth in a lab in Vessem. In two other Brabant labs, the police came across a network dealing with meth. But it is still unclear whether those drugs were also made there.
With at least four ‘meth factories’, the stuff seems to be on the rise. It yields a lot of money and is therefore even more attractive to make than speed or ecstasy. Nationally, there were a total of 20 meth labs this year, compared to 15 last year.
Coke laundries were also found. Three turned up in Bergen op Zoom, Chaam and Den Bosch. It is not yet clear whether they were Colombian.
Puss
What was special this year was the discovery of a lab for designer drugs, in which chemical variants of well-known synthetic drugs, such as speed, were made. There was such a lab for 3-CMC in Haps. This is also called Poes or 3M.
As always, the labs mainly produced for abroad because that yields the most.
Also worth mentioning this year was a house in Goirle that was stuffed with all kinds of drugs. And in Steenbergen the police found a huge cache of ketamine.
Dumping
No exact figures are yet known about drug dumping. The police do not yet have figures in the east, but there is the impression that there were fewer dumpings. In the west it is a different story: in the summer they already counted more than 30 dumpings, more than the entire previous year. One was extreme: 381 jerry cans and barrels were dumped in the woods near Achtmaal, close to the border.
Coke
Cocaine was less in the news in Brabant. Roughly 1,000 kilos have been intercepted here. The largest catch was a load of 800 kilos of vegetables in Moerdijk. The catches are now mainly made in seaports, such as Vlissingen, where a special port team has been set up that also works in Moerdijk.
There are no figures yet about the cannabis farms. But the number of illegal nurseries found is declining. In previous years, this involved around 300 nurseries in Brabant. A large part may now be abroad, especially Spain.
There has been a legal circuit since mid-December. In Breda and Tilburg, coffee shops sell cannabis grown with permission, as an experiment to keep the underworld out.