The attack occurred in the early morning of June 27, 2020. Police officers in waterproof suits, with masks and oxygen tanks appeared in front of a huge ranch in Danville, Estrie. They enter a farm building and proceed with extreme caution. The place is full of volatile chemicals. No agent wants to cause an explosion with one wrong move.
Posted at 5:00 am.
Then they see the overturned barrels.
The search carried out that day was the result of eight months of work. A team of specialized investigators from the Sûreté du Québec followed the trail of a methamphetamine production laboratory in a remote corner of the small town with fewer than 4,000 residents. The facilities, which are operated by henchmen on behalf of the Hells Angels, are among the most impressive ever discovered in Quebec. They can produce tens of kilograms of synthetic drugs every week. The small production cell is literally flooding the Quebec market with “speed” tablets that sell for a few dollars each.
Photo submitted as evidence in court
Barrels of chemicals at the Danville Clandestine Laboratory
Inside, the contents of several barrels appear to have been emptied into large vats, similar to those in mechanical workshops. These are connected to a system of pipes that lead underground to a series of buried blue plastic barrels. The upper walls of the barrels are perforated with small holes.
The rudimentary system appears to be designed to retain most of the solids evacuated from the laboratory at the bottom of the container. As the level rises, liquid waste flows into the environment through holes in the top of the barrel.
A Health Canada expert is on site. From the pipes she removes what appears to be mercuric chloride, a substance often used to cause a chemical reaction in the synthesis of methamphetamine. A highly water-soluble product that remains in the environment for a long time and is “very toxic to water in the short and long term,” according to the expert. Disposal usually has to take place in specialized facilities.
Photo submitted as evidence in court
“The department’s inspectors obtained a court order to unearth barrels like this one buried on the Danville lab site. »
In Danville, the product is simply returned to nature, near a man-made lake and stream. Given the levels of drug production observed by police at this site, the risk of contamination is high. The Quebec Environment Ministry was alerted.
Dead trees and missing plants
La Presse obtained an investigation summary prepared by the Ministry of Environment’s Special Operations Unit at the Danville site. The document was filed at the Sherbrooke courthouse to justify the forced entry into the site and the carrying out of certain tests to determine whether there were grounds to bring criminal charges for environmental crimes. “Preliminary information indicates that toxic or chemical products may have been released into the environment,” it said.
According to the court document, the first department inspector to arrive on the scene of the search noticed obvious “signs of environmental impact” on the property. She notices the presence of dead trees and the lack of vegetation around the laboratory’s vents, a sign that no plant can survive in the escaping fumes.
The inspector also undertakes to test the laboratory’s homemade filter system. She runs water into the tanks inside while a plumber runs a camera through the pipes to the barrels buried underground. The water immediately increases the liquid level in the barrels. But soon after, the level falls again, falls again, then falls again.
“Fifteen minutes later, the water level was lowered,” the ministry document summarizes. Nothing in this system is waterproof. Toxic products certainly occur in nature. »
Police also discovered two truck trailers on the ranch property that contained 14 and 126 buckets full of chemical waste, respectively. A handwritten note written by one of the site managers to an employee of the organization is recorded: “Ensure that the barrels into which you put landfills (gray and liquid) are full.” The fewer, the better. »
The very dangerous mercury chloride
Chronic exposure to mercury chloride can cause tremors, personality changes, memory loss, digestive problems, tooth loss, and brain and kidney damage. The substance is very soluble in water and can be harmful to aquatic organisms.
Photo submitted as evidence in court
Chemical spills near a secret laboratory in Saint-Nazaire, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, in 2015
In their court filing, investigators say they have reasonable grounds to believe that the emissions “during the manufacture of methamphetamine” violated the Environmental Quality Act. They note that “mercuric chloride is the most dangerous product in the manufacture of this narcotic,” but also list a number of other chemicals that could be involved.
In September 2022, a justice of the peace at the Sherbrooke Courthouse authorized the department to excavate the land to remove the buried barrels. Shortly afterwards, a file was sent to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) recommending that charges be brought against the site’s operators in connection with the environmental damage. Everything is currently being analyzed by the public prosecutor’s office.
A first
“This is the first file of this type for which the ministry sends recommendations to the DPCP,” confirmed Frédéric Fournier, spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, to La Presse.
However, there could be more in the future, he suggests.
“The ministry is aware of this problem and seeks to combat all activities that are likely to release pollutants into the environment. The ministry continues to closely monitor the situation and take appropriate action,” he said.
Police now estimate that methamphetamine pills have surpassed popularity among users in Quebec. Drug traffickers recently began importing methamphetamine from Mexico following repeated attacks by law enforcement. Historically, however, Quebec is considered a major producer of synthetic drugs, with a well-structured market around large laboratories controlled by organized crime.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Captain Ghislain Cossette and Lieutenant Jean-François Dion of the Sûreté du Québec
They can produce on the north shore of Montreal and supply all of Quebec. We have seen production capacities of 50,000 tablets per hour. It comes out… like a machine gun!
Lieutenant Jean-François Dion of the Sûreté du Québec
A recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime highlights that this process produces five to ten tonnes of waste for every tonne of drugs extracted.
In the environment, these wastes “can have significant impacts on soil, water and air, as well as indirect effects on organisms, animals and the food chain,” the report continues.
“The majority of the global production of amphetamine and methamphetamine typically takes place in remote locations without water treatment,” specify the UN experts, citing in particular the case of a synthetic drug laboratory in the Netherlands that dumped its waste into a stream has led to massive deaths of the fish, amphibians and invertebrates living there.
Significant income
The two directors of the secret laboratory in Danville, Roxane Savard and Emmanuel Pereira, pleaded guilty to a series of charges related to the production of methamphetamine and received sentences of three and seven years, respectively. If found guilty of violating the Environmental Quality Act, they may be subject to fines.
Their superiors within the drug trafficking network have not yet been arrested. The Sûreté du Québec confirms that it is linked to the Hells Angels, which controls most of Quebec’s methamphetamine supply and derives significant revenue from it.
Other organizations can sometimes venture into the production of the popular drug, but must pay a tax to the hells, says Captain Ghislain Cossette of the Sûreté du Québec. “There is still a licensing system when control of production is not linked to banned motorcycle gangs,” he says.