the d. w will then progress as tough calls to everyone who wants to know more about the topic. the 2nd son of about this story is beyond the headlines world in progress. the w talk cost. we joined the debts, police on the trail of drug mafia gangs. i think we're on to something on producing synthetic drugs. not only requires a lot of chemicals, it also produces tons of highly toxic waste, which usually ends up in the environment. you're either of homes and children here driven by greed, the cartels often pressure residents and to cooperating. the sake of also the

farmer received a threatening letter in the letter box. the item it read. we know where your children go to school. everything about you can hope so. is it this? how dangerous is this toxic waste for humans and the environment the across the border in western germany, there are problems to. this is a sleepy village north of beaver fit. in april 2019 a startling discovery was made. the ones i've got unfortunately that's what when we just couldn't imagine that such a large drug lab could be set up on our doorstep in this village without anyone noticing on wanted us to come to russ lori heads up the local volunteer fire department one sunday morning during breakfast,

he saw something shocking looking out of the window, there was a fire raging not far from his home. right next to his workshop. lorry drove straight over. just as he arrived, 2 strangers were leading the burning building which belong to a local business man. and him over to come at that moment, 2 men came out of the building and with one of them had the gas mask consequent, most of the old they let the scene in advance. other firefighters from russ lori's department, then arrived. they entered the building to investigate. at 1st, they didn't know what to make of it. they were countless propane gas cylinders, all stockton, the entrance area. it was almost impossible to get through. the explosive cylinders were not only dangerous, but also highly unusual. why would anyone need so much gas?

you must the sheer amount of it was suspicious much further inside they found $1000.00 leader canisters filled with chemicals, likely both toxic and explosive density to it. so what involved the whole thing was a bit overwhelming to me, but when do we see over the next few hours it became clear that laurie and his team were not dealing with a normal fire. they had stumbled upon the largest drug laboratory ever found in germany. the, the netherlands, it's december 2022. we are in the province of limbo. we're out with an under cover investigator from the judge police. to protect his identity. we're hiding his face and have distorted his voice. we'll call him young boys as well. sure. it's always good and i'm afraid exciting to be out at night though.

we have information that there might be a drug lab somewhere here in building in a village near here. yeah, we don't know if there are people there now, and the special task force will go in 1st to check it out and make sure the areas safe. there are people inside, so they'll be arrested. and if there are weapons they'll be confiscated. so now i'm stuck on the wall from them or should i follow your follow you? are you who the guy with the toyota, the view of the most common synthetic drugs are ecstasy which is consumed in pill form. speed which can be snorted, an crystal mass, the crystal form of methamphetamine, which can be smokes for also, snorted. young boy goes and his team, meanwhile, are getting ready to storm the drug lab. they discovered, as while investigating undercover the,

the police approaching convoy heavily armed special forces unit is in the black man . they also had a bulldozer ready to tear open the gates. so the special task force can enter quickly and surprise, anyone who may be inside the doors open. they're going in wearing gas masks to protect themselves from the chemicals used in drug production, the police store and the building, the at the 1st store, the officers find nothing. you could try all the doors. it's building 52 d or 2 d id. it should we open at the door, someone there,

the police break open a 2nd door and then a 3rd the, the loud center move inside the warehouse, the barrels of the chemicals or something. so the telephone will now come and check them. and i think it will be a good hall. you think of it from you? go to frontier. the d l s. o is the department of the depths, police force that specializes in chemicals used in drugs. when something suspicious is found, they go in after the special forces unit to check whether there are hazardous substances and secure the scene. or know they've done an inspection to see what's in the lab. and if there are any toxic chemicals, but once we get the okay from them, we can go in through your game. we're going come with me going to run out

of you now the other police officers can enter the building. we're going into the collision from our colleagues from the left. so say no drugs have been produced here. yes. so this is a laboratory under construction. it'd be there's where this stuff is. this is all this whole dropped to try is heading up the alaska operation. he's been taking a closer look at the chemicals a visit from the next level to this is a drug laboratory under construction. the great we see here a very large boiler tank with a capacity of around 1000 leaders of do the move that are all sorts of suction devices over 5, they still have to be assembled is here. and there's a guide. another look at the size of that tank. you could portal several 100 leaders of chemicals in there once you think you go and this will help guide

another family guy. always look at the chemicals over here. the side of the things you there in this tent of the variables contained form of mind or form like asset humans and phosphor gas it it's an amphetamine laboratory, almost ready to begin production. the chemicals would be mixed and heated in large metal containers using gas burner. and there are tons of chemicals, toxic acid stuff would have produced around 1000 kilos of amphetamines, with the street value of 1000000 zeros in just one week. the gen blacklist and his colleagues drove and back was a special investigator for a drug laboratories. have seen many such crime scenes was always almost once a bit unusual about there's places that here of the chemicals. here is the laboratory. and next to it is a room where people who work here can sleep or have

a cup of coffee from the clinton from a. this is all just when the thing is, once the process is running, you can't interrupted. how much do i stick with it? once and if something goes wrong, you have to be able to intervene so strong. and i mean that's where things get especially problematic. because the people who make these drugs and most of them don't usually know what to do if it goes wrong from steven office. and so sometimes there are accidents and people get seriously hurt because things explode and so on . the items. while we've seen it off, i can show magazine the netherlands is europe's biggest center for producing synthetic drugs. by chance, the police also stumble on account of his plantation nearby during their operation . but here the investigators are more concerned about the synthetic drugs as they involve toxic chemicals. very few of the drug makers or chemists and aware of the dangers, fires and explosions occurred time and again,

local residents are also at risk, even though most of them have no idea what's happening in their neighborhood. it just says the various chemical vapors are released on it during the process. see arbin monoxide can be released, which is dangerous. that's more a still like concentration might even be high enough to kill someone if it's ever since on. so that's why the special unit that went in was 1st we're wearing protective suits each offer. they include masks that filter out these substances so they can work safely. item gun and even just don't seem to feel pretty clean here because the lab was still under construction licenses. it's usually the case that once they start producing this, the place gets pretty dirty, leasing are let mister know what's the most that you like. and they don't know exactly what they're doing design,

so there may be chemicals everywhere life. and you have to be careful where your statute thankful. otherwise your shoes might melt away and burn. it's quite dangerous. and i just want to finish large quantities of toxic waste are produced during the manufacturer of the drugs. the desk police told us the 1st 1000 kilos of amphetamines in this laboratory would have produced up to 30000 kilos, toxic waste. so what happens to them waste the back in germany, in the city of this sort of we find answers from the state criminal police force. forensic scientist johan is tied up on a linda chemical analyses of a huge drug laboratory phone here deal event in 20. 19 it too was a laboratory for producing amphetamines, including speed. thanks to 3 d imaging, you know, towards the crime scene from his computer. does this closet that make all of this

of them you from the warehouse to the outside? when kind of started out, you can then turn around and have a view into the building needs. you can see a lot of canisters, stuart here, come this for these. i'd be seized with a capacity of 1000 leaders from moving some contain waste chemical saying volume further back are the ones with pure chemicals used to synthesize to the drug just wouldn't. there were 2 rooms set up for the synthesizing of amphetamines, a break room for the drug makers, and elaborate ventilation system to filter out the toxic vapors and transport them outside equipment for producing $1000.00 leaders of amphetamine. oil per week, well shielded from the outside world, plus $30000.00 leader canisters for storing chemicals and toxic waste. and here the investigators made a shocking discovery. inside of this, i know that one of the canisters at the back is crucial states. let's zoom in

closer money, i was on the phone with me at the moment the photo was taken. there was still a back on top of the outlet east of the miles, but we later discovered a deep well that had been drilled here is where the waste was being emptied into the ground when he up fairly inch presence inside or outside you all your lights and forward the whole wind down 12 meters below the surface. the investigators were alarmed the chemical waste with not only contaminate the soil and killed plants, animals, and micro organisms. any person who came into contact with the caustic chemicals could also burn their skin. and if they drink that contaminated groundwater could even damage their internal organs. the the police investigation showed the laboratory, had only been in operation for a few weeks. it was set up by a dutch gang a short circuit,

probably triggers of fire in the plant. luckily, the laboratory had only been able to produce a small amount of drugs and therefore hadn't discharged much waste. and environmental report found no acute risk to local residents. the fuel, let's and michigan are no longer possible to determine how much it seats into the ground. and what we believe that was only a few 100 leaders ago who at least from the tank that was connected at the time. so you can turn that off to a on this list involved. back in the netherlands, investigator young boy goes, is visiting the public prosecutor's office in monterey. he's investigating a case of chemicals, trafficking, and wants to discuss the next steps with public prosecutor. groups made appointments like this are not uncommon for young boy. this drug production is booming and the netherlands, ecstasy and speed produced here can make it all the way to us. truly 80 percent of

the judge may drugs or an exported one. european studies found that the cartels sell 19000000000 zeros worth every year. a destructive business all around a father, that's the resulting chemical waste pollutants the far as what runs into a river so low. it's not good for wild life, but it's not good for people either. when children play in the area, they come into contact with the chemicals. it's dangerous, and so this young boy, this is taking a criminal investigator from amsterdam to see an illegal drug dumpsite shown him a volume is investigating the phenomenon of drug waste throughout the country. she's hoping that young boy goes can give her information on what's happening in the province of limbo. it's an area of particular interest because it live close to the border with germany and belgium. things here in the neighborhood area that are, that this very close to the borders is very different. for instance, in, in the,

in northern region of significant or the eastern regional ser, i'll say, or the amendments. the big question is, are the drug producers transporting their waste and disposing of it far away from the laboratories to minimize the risk of detection or, or they disposing at a close by which is cheaper and easier if you want to know how far the truck then waste is traffic, you have to know where it comes from and often we don't need to know it. um there there's, there's too many dumb things to analyze the contents. there's also a terry bit and like be like professional bumpers will collect the ways from shuffle production locations and then dump it at one spot. youngblood. let's choose china made about a dumping site right on the german dashboard and a dylan, rural location. during the day, the area is popular with walkers and cyclists, but at night it's quiet. the field is surrounded by woods,

perfect place to dispose of waste. if you look at this, or the good thing is at least it's in containers. so the waste is contained, but you can see that this kind of message funding around to the is a risk of that. it's going to leak and then it would be dangerous if you get in contact with the substances cells. but this can be verse. there are cases where the waste is directly dumped into the land or into the water. and this can, has to fear results for plans with those before animals or the yeah, the 1st useful nurse, the dutch authorities find around $200.00 such dump sites every year. sometimes the drug producers simply dump the waste into the sewage system. but if the chemicals reach a certain concentration, they disrupt the function of the sewage treatment plants. so with this option, there's a high risk of detection. throughout her investigation, shannon mail bomb has found that the car towels dispose of 70 percent of their

toxic waste in sparsely populated nature reserve. they often steal cars or trucks, load them full of waste and then abandoned them or set them on fire. for they bribed farmers to let them mix the smelly waste into the liquid mon. newer the chemicals are then spread out onto the fields. debts, police find $250000.00 kilos of drug waste every year. but according to estimates, that's only a 3rd of the actual amount of waste produced, the probably the criminal networks are getting better and hiding destruct waste and disposing it in ways that we don't easily detect germany's criminal police office and respond concern is also growing about the dangers of drug waste. the large lab discovered nearby the head shows the depths drug mafia is also active in germany, and the waste doesn't stop at the border either. so it doesn't often goes on for

2018. there was a case where a truck was simply driven across the border, answer the phone on to and for the police officer noticed abram liquids leaking out of it, contained at 10 tons of production waste. misha inputs is another forensic scientist and a chemist. before he explains what actually makes the waste so toxic, he shows us the drugs that the police have confiscated. this is i know this is a valuable ecstasy, tablets and the depiction, the bags inside of the contain around 100000 tablets 6. and she told me that this is, i looked on slide tests and you don't know if this is one of 2 back that were cced and one home and a 1000. so 200000 tablets and total cost plus and ecstasy tablet typically sells for around $5.00 euro soon to. so these 2 bags alone have a street value of around 1000000 euro sleif. with these impression, i'm getting that for the 1000000 euro is for 2 bags. that's an indication of just how much money can be made from these drugs. it explains why the producers are

willing to handle toxic chemicals without fully understanding what they're doing. michelle puts them, does a little experiment to demonstrate just how dangerous the chemicals are and get them off at the main level. but in every amphetamine laboratory you'll find at least 2 of these 4 assets often and very large quantities. so this, the concentrated cost for the concepts into the concentrated form, a gas that they just move concentrated sophia gas. so to design and concentrated hydrochloric acid, ease of use over. did you want to pose a specific dangers of them? was for me. yeah. so for example, releases carbon monoxide to bits heat it too much, it's good coin, monarchs it fire this way, and that's why fatal accidents occurring amphetamine laboratories and they'll do to carbon monoxide poisoning for recording. now let's look at the effect of concentrated so if you're a gas it organic materials will call fun content for you to see if it's live off or gone to so much for the items you're getting material he's going to use is simple household sugar. it consists of nothing other than carbohydrates,

a basic building block of life found in the cells of our bodies. so what happens? the ass, it breaks down, or rather burns the sugar within just a short time. this would all my name. this would have the same effect on living systems, so i could equally burn the surface of my skin as questions, plants, addition to corrosive assets. the waste contains other substances which are likely dangerous to just let them off. is this for the bad news? is that all these organic substances that are by products i meant that i mean, synthesis have not actually been pharmacologic. we studied regardless. so it's not exactly possible to say what toxic effect and they'll likely have most of the talks of l cool funding or experts suspect that the drug waste contains carcinogenic substances. but whether they could pose a risk to humans in nature has not yet been properly researched. in 2018,

a study from the netherlands found residues of the chemical waste and corn and therefore in the food chain. but was that an isolated case or evidence of something more widespread? nobody knows. as there's no regular screening for these chemicals, the, the cartels appear to have been busy expanding their activities in rural areas. general i goes, meets with the spokes person for the nimble farming community. the under cover investigator wants to know what experience the farmers have had with the mafia, becomes clear that the gangs are specifically targeting store houses and barns to produce trucks and hide waste and that would open it up. okay, so let me give you an example. let's say google farmer received a threatening letter in the letter box, get it read, and it says, we know where your children go to school. they can also, we're going to do anything again and we'll talk w i to a level. in other words,

it's also farmers are being blackmail and intimidated into continuing to do this. academic like is that for into making their premises available, even though they no longer want to meet most of the farmer ties to run through the bank has himself been lucky? so far, unlike other farmers and friends of his, he has not yet been approached by the drug producers. he's all too aware that standing up to the brutal and financially powerful cartels is not easy. so how can the problem of the drug labs be brought under control? the one possibility would be to target the root of the problem by taking chemicals used in drug production out of circulation before they can get into the wrong hands. the substances are mostly brought to europe by sea, from china arriving here at the port of hamburg. for example, customs investigators have received a tip off. they're following

a truck that may be transporting drug chemicals. so we have a single container. we've picked up a container here, a container terminal, which we will now take to the volume, this whole area to be x rayed. splitting. the truck is put into a huge x ray machine where its contents can be scanned, the but the image on the computer just appear to show anything suspicious stuff. i've been patched different. i'm finished. can you come over the all settings? so i've studied the x ray, let's look at it together. so i haven't found any irregularities. and the can do, painter itself is also negative, negative. the container container itself is negative, no sign of manipulation. that's what i'm let me show you again here. my. yeah. but the x ray images only provide

a limited view to continue. so the investigators decide to break open the container mine arnold was one. my impression is that the goods are ultimately no different from what we've already seen on the x ray image. we can also see now during the manual inspection that the goods are packed in different ways. and then we have a few more packages on top, which was also clearly visible on the x ray, because the not, you can just, it sounds like there's, there's nothing here that gives rise to suspicion that would justify a more in delegate inspection. you can good from our point of view. we can now say the goods are okay, the also the other channels. since the 19 ninety's, germany and the netherlands have had a list of chemicals that are considered precursors for drug production. the substances are subject to customs controls,

but the drug producers regularly change their formulas. plus many companies also use these chemicals for completely legal purposes. so the work of the customs officers is like searching for a needle in a haystack. and they can only get the fraction of the containers thorough check the back in the middle in the authorities are now trying to enlist the help of the general public. their hope is that this could allow new laboratories to be discovered more quickly. the chair of a former police officer is explaining to local people how a drug laboratory works and what it smells like. they have got that is the whole c, m, k is a precursor of m d m a, which is the active ingredient in x and x. and next to see, right?

again, when i ask young people that they know the answer to a and b m k smells a little bit like a nice the hope is that vigilant residents who noticed a suspicious smell in the neighborhood were reported to the police, look and then disrupt the operations of the drug cartels and thereby stopped them spreading. we're on the road again with young boy good. he wants to show us another crime scene. so you have sent to you by the visa, the to garage is where we were a few months ago. the law, this is where the laboratory was all the, the laboratory wasn't number 4 and the chemicals were number 5. it's very dangerous when they're right next to each other like that to me. but on the screen, the drug producers simply dump their toxic waste into the adjacent stream, which then became contaminated. it had to be cleaned up and great expense. your water. this is where it was smoke,

who's came around the corner and led down into the water. people live all around here for more children to play here. they're in animals. house patch that might drink from the water. yes, it's very worrying. every year, the dutch government spend $6000000.00 euros on cleanup operations like this one. the wider risks are rarely examined closely. and in germany, the problem gets even less attention. the authorities don't keep a central record of how many illegal drug waste dumps are identified per each and each year. the news, the

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