Mission RCMP busted a large-scale fentanyl lab in the Hatzic Valley last weekend, seizing 25 kg of pure fentanyl and about 3 kg already cut for street distribution.
Police estimate the seizure would equal over 2.5 million street doses of fentanyl.
“I don’t know if you could get much more toxic than the stuff that they were making here,” Cpl. Harrison Mohr said in a press conference on Thursday (Nov. 2). “But certainly, there’s obviously other labs elsewhere that are going to step up their production.”
No charges have been laid in connection to the seizure and no one is in custody at the moment. Police believe ties to organized crime are likely due to the amount of product the lab was producing and the costs associated with running it. An investigation is ongoing.
The lab was brought to the detachment’s attention after officers were called to the 12700 block of Stave Lake Road in the early morning hours of Oct. 27 for a report of gunshots.
Officers found shell casings on the street, a tire on fire and the word fentanyl (spelled incorrectly) spray-painted in front of the property. The Lower Mainland Emergency Response Team confirmed no one was injured.
“We certainly believe that whoever did this did so with the … purpose of drawing police to the property and helping us to investigate,” Mohr said.
Mission RCMP obtained a search warrant and spent several days on scene gathering evidence with the assistance of the RCMP’s Clandestine Lab Enforcement and Response Team (CLEAR) and a representative from Health Canada.
Mohr says whoever drew the police’s attention to the property had direct knowledge of what was going on.
“Whether or not it was a group in competition or somebody else that was aware of what was going on in the property and took issue with the poison that was being made there — but if the people that alerted us to this property know of other properties with similar labs on them in the Mission area, give us a call…please don’t fire off rounds,” he said.
Investigators determined that the 88-acre property housed a large-scale fentanyl operation housed inside a storage building and several shipping containers.
“It’s a very sophisticated setup and it’s one that requires a lot of very expensive equipment and a lot of very hazardous chemicals. To that regard, the people that would have been running this would have had access to a lot of resources,” Mohr says.
In addition to approximately 28 kg of fentanyl, police discovered precursor materials to make more fentanyl, 2,000 litres of chemicals and 6,000 litres of hazardous chemical waste.
Police say evidence indicates the lab has been in operation since 2017, starting as a meth lab before transitioning to fentanyl production. Mohr says there were no prior reports of drug activity at the location before last Friday.
According to Mission RCMP, no one was in the lab at the time but there were a couple of people living on the property. The owners do not live at the property. RCMP is still investigating whether they were directly associated with the lab.
“The seizure of this fentanyl and the dismantling of this drug lab to prevent further production will have a significant impact on the people that profit from the harm this drug causes in our communities,” Mission RCMP Officer in Charge Ted Lewko said in a news release.
“We hope that the residents in the area of the lab will also feel safer knowing that this facility has been shut down.”
Those with information about the property are asked to contact Mission RCMP at 604-826-7161.