“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat
Against three Mexican nationals, the Public Prosecution Service has demanded five- and four-year prison sentences in court in Arnhem for producing crystal meth in an illegal laboratory. On Thursday, the prosecutor also demanded five and four years in prison in this case against two men from Zevenaar and Arnhem.
The Mexican cooks were flown in to produce methamphetamine here, the prosecutor said. The Public Prosecution Service wants the men to pay an amount of 106,961.40 euros for criminally obtained money in addition to imprisonment.
On June 28 last year, the police invaded the warehouse in Arnhem containing the drug lab. Several clues had been received by the police about the property. A living area was set up in the shed, where police found the three Mexican suspects during the raid.
Police then found a hidden hatch that gave access to a professional drug lab, intended to be able to make or process synthetic drugs on a large scale.
All suspects denied their involvement to a greater or lesser extent. They said they didn’t know what was happening in the shed, and only came to clean and deliver groceries. The prosecutor thinks that’s an unbelievable story.
DNA traces of the suspects have been found in the lab, where production equipment, boilers and raw materials were located.
Who the owners of the lab were is unknown.
A video recorded in the lab was found on the phone of one of the suspects, a day after the Mexican nationals arrived in the Netherlands. The accompanying text in the video was ‘cheers boys, good luck’.
For safety, the suspects had put a canary in a cage. This allowed them to keep an eye on whether no toxic substances escaped.
