MADRID: Police in Spain have arrested five people after seizing thousand of rave drugs described as more toxic than cocaine or marijuana bound for the UK.
Nearly 15,000 packets of synthetic cannabinoids due to be distributed in Britain and Spain were confiscated during a search at a warehouse in Alicante.
Officers say the suspects elaborated the chemicals using drugs similar to banned substances so they could try to sell them as natural products in grow shops.
The five people arrested come from Lithuania, Latvia and Ucrania.
The police operation – dubbed Operation Rulas – began in January when they discovered a secret lab at a luxury villa in the Costa Blanca holiday resort of Altea.
Undercover officers discovered the two suspects living at the property left it regularly in the early hours to pick up alleged accomplices and head to the warehouse where the drugs were subsequently found.
Police in Spain got Britain’s National Crime Agency involved after seeing a parcel delivery firm collect five boxes bound for the UK from the warehouse which turned out to contain synthetic cannabinoids.
They obtained a warrant to search the premises because of their suspicions the legal products were being adulterated with harmful substances to produce effects similar to banned drugs.
A spokesman for Spain’s National Police said: “They had prepared the drugs for sale in establishments known as grow shops.
“Its toxic effect is stronger than that of marijuana or cocaine”
“The people behind these underground labs that produce these synthetic drugs, known as rave drugs or legal highs, check the inclusion of the substances they use in the lists of banned substances, altering them with others which are similar but unregulated until they’re detected and classified as illegal.
“In this case, the suspects used a substance similar to methamphetamine and another psychoactive drug classified as an hallucinogen.
“Its toxic effect is stronger than that of marijuana or cocaine.”
