By Mujtaba Ali

Last summer, when UK police raided an industrial building in the picturesque market town of Newton-le-Willows, about 20 miles east of Liverpool, they found something they had never seen before. Police already knew that the five members of a transnational organized crime group they had been monitoring planned to produce amphetamines. But in the first case of its kind in the UK, the group, which included two Chinese chemists, was planning on producing the drug from scratch.

Amphetamines are made from precursors, which are chemicals used for many legitimate purposes but also in the production of illegal drugs. These precursors are closely monitored by drug enforcement agencies, and drug producers either smuggle them into countries or divert them from legitimate supply chains to avoid suspicion. Amid heightened pressure on precursor smugglers, however, the Liverpool-area crime group planned to synthesize the precursors locally, rather than bring them into the UK and risk arrest.

The raid of the industrial site uncovered enough chemicals to produce 135 kg of amphetamines, with a street value of over $400,000. The group also had large quantities of sodium 2-oxo-3 phenylglycidate, a chemical that can be altered to make an amphetamine precursor called BMK. The group’s plans could have produced $8.4 million worth of amphetamine in total, the Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) said.

“These defendants were not run-of-the-mill drug dealers, this was pioneering work,” Elizabeth Jenkins, senior lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service’s Organised Crime Division, said in a press release.

Their plans were indicative of a broader shift in the drug market. With greater sophistication and access to scientific talent, dealers are increasingly synthesizing drugs from their most base ingredients. In the UK case, the two Chinese chemists had been selected for their ability to create amphetamine from simpler chemical compounds; the group’s ringleader even travelled to China for a demonstration of the pair’s skills. The ringleader, a UK national, subsequently sponsored the two chemists’ work visas.

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