'Industrial scale' drug labs found on Merseyside

Eight people have been arrested in early morning raids after police uncovered drugs laboratories on an industrial scale believed to be one of the biggest operations the UK has ever seen.

Ten warrants were executed at residential properties across Merseyside on Wednesday morning by officers from the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit.

At one property, in Prescot, Merseyside, police used a saw to cut through the front door before detaining a 68-year-old man inside.

He was brought out to a police van wearing shorts and with a jacket over his head, covering his face.

The eight arrests were made on suspicion of production of and conspiracy to supply class A and B.

It comes as part of an investigation which began two-and-a-half years ago when police in South Wales detained a Liverpool-based suspect with an estimated £1m worth of amphetamines.

Insp Danny Murphy said warrants were carried out in April 2024 on industrial premises in Bootle and Huyton, one where a tonne of suspected heroin adulterant was found and the other where 550kg of what was believed to be cocaine adulterant was discovered.

At the same time as those warrants, officers searched a residential premises in St Helens where a suspected amphetamine laboratory, with 80kg of the drug, was found.

He said: "We think the laboratory set-ups and the industrial scale of it at the time, in 2023, was the biggest we've seen in the UK, so it's a big investigation, a very detailed one."

Insp Murphy said the organised crime group was suspected of transporting the drugs across the country in a multimillion-pound conspiracy.

Those arrested are alleged to have been "significant players" and to have carried out a number of roles in the suspected criminal enterprise, including "cooking" the drugs and couriering across the country, as well as organising.

Insp Murphy said police believed drugs were imported to the country before being bulked out with adulterants in the labs, potentially making millions of pounds of profit for the crime group.

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