25 ARRESTED AS POLICE SMASH EUROPE'S LARGEST COCAINE LAB AFTER TWO-YEAR OPERATION

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:03 AM on 19th January 2011

Police in Spain believe they have smashed Europe's largest and most sophisticated cocaine lab following a two-year investigation.

They swooped on a villa outside Madrid, arrested 25 people and seized 300kg (660lbs) of the drug, with a street value of about £25million.

Anti-drug agents also found 33 tons of chemicals used to prepare the cocaine for sale, according to a Madrid police statement today.


Some of the huge haul of drugs and cash discovered by agents who smashed Europe's largest cocaine laboratory outside Madrid


A Spanish policeman guards packages of confiscated drugs and money from the cocaine factory in Madrid today

Police also seized £40million in goods and financial assets linked to the laboratory, £1.7million in cash in the raid on the villa and confiscated 470 mobile phones.

Those arrested included Colombians and several Spanish lawyers who helped launder money made from selling the cocaine.

The latest success follows last week's seizure of another big consignment of cocaine hidden in plastic bananas in a 22-ton shipment of real fruit that arrived in the Spanish port of Algeciras from Ecuador.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348265/25-arrested-police-smash-Europes-largest-cocaine-lab-2-year-operation.html