europol

Hague-based agency for fighting international and organised crime says it has dealt ‘massive blow’ to narco traffickers.

European police have smashed a major network manufacturing synthetic drugs in illegal labs across several countries.

Polish prosecutors announced on Wednesday that investigators had seized more than 9.3 tonnes of narcotics and arrested more than 100 suspects in an operation targeting ⁠a criminal network centred in the Central European country and spanning the European Union.

The operation dismantled 24 industrial-scale labs and seized about 1,000 tonnes of chemicals, imported legally from China and India, used to make street drugs such as MDMA, amphetamine and meth, according to news agency AFP.

Andy Kraag, head of Europol’s European Serious Organised Crime Centre, which coordinated police actions across borders, said the operation had dealt a “massive blow to organised crime groups involved in drug trafficking”.

“I’ve been in this business for a while. This is by far the largest-ever operation we did against synthetic drug production and distribution,” he said.

The yearlong operation involved police from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. Among those arrested were two suspected ringleaders, both from Poland, Kraag said.

Laboratories and drug production lines were located in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, which served as the logistical hub.

The majority of those arrested were from Poland, but Belgian and Dutch nationals are also thought to have been involved.

Suspicions were raised in 2024 when Polish police noticed a network importing vast quantities of chemicals from China and India.

Investigators discovered they were being repackaged, mislabelled and redistributed across the EU to the labs.

Kraag said the operation was part of a “supply-chain strategy” to choke off the synthetic drug industry at its source.

“These criminal groups, they don’t have their supply any more,” he said.