European gangs are getting better at making their own illegal drugs

WHEN SPANISH police looked into a gang from the Canary Islands last year, they unwittingly landed on something big. In an unassuming house in Galicia, in north-western Spain, specialist teams were working around the clock to produce up to 200kg of cocaine a day. Two gangs, one Colombian, the other Mexican, had paid around €2m ($2.1m) to set up the lab, which the Spaniards supplied with cocaine base. It was only the second cocaine lab found in Spain. So far it is the largest ever discovered in Europe.