Last year, the Drenthe police closed up half as many drug labs as the year before. This is evident from the annual figures published by the police today. While six drug labs were rolled up in our province in 2020, only one working drug lab was shut down last year. It was located on the Eldijk in Dalen and was dismantled in September.
However, two non-functioning labs were found in a residential area in Nieuw-Roden. The items and raw materials for making drugs were there, but the banned substance was not yet produced. That makes a total of three, and thus a halving. Nevertheless, according to Sylvia te Wierik, the sector head of the Northern Netherlands criminal investigation department, the flag cannot be raised, despite the fact that the police “has taken a major blow” in 2020.
Police were busy after messages from so-called ‘cryptophones’ belonging to criminals were intercepted. “A number of criminal partnerships have been rolled up with this, so you can see that it is now a bit quieter. But we also know that it is only temporary,” says Te Wierik.
Just because drug labs aren’t being broken up doesn’t mean they aren’t there or aren’t being set up. “Some of those criminals are still in prison, so new people have to be trained. Drugs often have to be boiled and those people have to be flown in again. That is a whole specialty,” Te Wierik knows. “The criminals are regrouping in that regard, but that also gives us a chance to regroup and tell society what to watch out for.”
Eyes in society
The drug lab that was rolled up in Dalen, for example, was discovered after local residents rang the bell. They saw men walking with barrels and called the police. In this way, drug labs or hemp plantations are more often traced. There is also a significant drop in the number of hemp plantations being rolled up. Only figures are known for the whole of the Northern Netherlands, which includes the Drenthe unit. It fell by a quarter from 246 to 184. But that decrease is also easy to explain. “Together with the mayors, we mainly focused on hard drugs, also because that is much more dangerous and there is greater criminal gain.”
But does the cannabis grower have free rein? The head of the sector does not want to call it that. “We still have our eyes and ears in society. We still rely on reports. So I don’t want to challenge the hemp grower in that regard.”
And if you have drug labs or hemp plantations, you also have drug waste. That was found in two places in our province, a year earlier there were still five. Incidentally, the first drug lab of 2022 has already been rolled up. It was located in Stieltjeskanaal.