Italy says seizes six tonnes of drug ‘precursors’ from China

Italian authorities announced Monday the seizure of more than six tonnes of chemicals from China allegedly intended to produce illegal drugs, including ecstasy, worth more than 630 million euros ($678 million).

Italy’s financial police said two shipments contained enough so-called “drug precursors” to produce more than 63 million MDMA pills, the synthetic drug known as ecstasy, which police said was enough to “flood” the market in Europe.

“It’s an exceptional seizure and important,” Lieutenant Gina Caggiano of the financial police told AFP.

To date, “there hasn’t been a seizure of ‘precursors’ of this size in an airport,” she added.

Two Chinese nationals were arrested in the Netherlands while an investigation was opened into an Italian businessman in Milan, as part of a two-year investigation carried out with European judicial agency Eurojust, said Italian police in a statement.

The investigation dates from 2022, according to Italian news agency Ansa, when financial police intercepted a shipment at Milan’s Malpensa Airport.

After being analysed in a laboratory, powder seized that purported to be polyester powder coating turned out to be PMK — a chemical compound used to make ecstasy.

The cargo was intended to pass through a company with headquarters in Milan before being shipped off to the Netherlands.

Dutch authorities then identified the intended final destination and seized dozens of kilos of PMK, ketamine, and hashish, Italian police said.

In the meantime, financial police in the northern Italian city of Varese intercepted a second shipment containing over 2,000 kilograms of BMK, used to make amphetamine and methamphetamine, they said.

At the importer’s warehouse, police found an additional supply of more than 4,000 kilograms of PMK.

With just the chemicals seized in Italy, “it would have been possible to produce more than 63 million MDMA tablets: a number suitable to flood the European market,” according to police.