Canada’s largest drug ‘superlab’ in history has been taken down, police say

Canadian federal officers have dismantled what they described to be the largest, most sophisticated drug lab in the country’s history, seizing a massive cache of weapons and drugs intended for both international and domestic distribution.

The facility, described by police officers as a drug “superlab,” contained enough fentanyl and precursor chemicals to produce more than 95.5 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl, an amount that “could have taken the lives of every Canadian, at least twice over,” Assistant Commissioner David Teboul with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.

About 54 kilograms of fentanyl and 390 kilograms of methamphetamine, in addition to “massive amounts of precursor chemicals” and smaller amounts of cocaine, MDMA and cannabis, were discovered at the facility in Falkland, a small rural community in British Columbia, the police statement said, adding that the lab was believed to be behind the production and distribution of “unprecedented quantities” of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

The raid also allowed investigators to learn of large stores of methamphetamine that had been prepared for shipment and were destined for international export.

With the help of the Canada Borders Services Agency, investigators were able to seize 310 kilograms of methamphetamine before it left Canada, Teboul said.

The investigators found evidence that a drug production method used by Mexican cartels was likely to have been used in the Falkland laboratory, describing it as the first time they had seen this method in Western Canada, and an issue “of particular concern.”

Authorities in Canada and the United States have been grappling with record numbers of opioid overdose deaths in recent years, and the spread of drug labs in Canada poses a potential challenge to drug enforcement in the United States – where the majority of resources and efforts are focused along the southern border with Mexico.

Investigators said they also seized 89 firearms, nine of which had been identified as stolen, as well as a cache of small explosive devices, ammunition, suppressors, high-capacity magazines, body armor and 500,000 Canadian dollars ($360,000 USD).

The main suspect, Gaganpreet Randhawa, was arrested and charged with a number of drug- and firearms-related offenses, police said, without giving further details.

In Canada, more than 42,500 people have died of drug overdoses since 2016.