Cartels exporting Meth expertise - d-meth

In Europe meth has traditionally been produced and consumed in eastern Europe. Up to 2016 police had busted three meth labs in Holland. In the last three years they have busted 27. Holland’s rising meth production is being supported by Mexican cartels. Most recently Dutch police raided a lab in a barn in the town of Achter-Drempt, seizing €10m ($10.8m) worth of crystal meth and precursors. Three, a Mexican, a Colombian, and an American were arrested.

The Dutch are now making an elite form of meth. In the cartel superlabs in Mexico, cooks use a precursor called BMK to make an easily made, less potent form of meth. BMK (benzyl methyl ketone, also called Phenylacetone) is the main precursor for the production of amphetamine. Mexican cooks have perfected a step that converts the waste materials from making this meth into a more potent, addictive, crystalline type of meth called “d-meth.” (dextromethamphetamine) Evidence of this technique has been found at all the busted Dutch sites.