Six raids net huge drug haul

Safrole oil is used in the production of ecstasy pills, like these, which were seized in a raid on a laboratory in New York. (Reuters)

Thursday, 03 May 2012
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
The Phnom Penh Post

Eleven people were arrested and more than 3,000 litres of safrole oil – enough to manufacture 30 million tablets of ecstasy – were seized on Tuesday and yesterday during raids on six drug-producing sites in the capital, police said.

The raids, the product of a months-long investigation, were led by Brigadier General Touch Naruth, chief of Phnom Penh Municipal Police, and Chiv Keng, president of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, along with related district governors and officials of the four city districts where the raids occurred.

“I think that this is a big operation for cracking down on drugs,” said Pen Rath, deputy chief of the Phnom Penh Municipal Police. “This is another success, and we have arrested many drug dealers, cracked down on many drug-producing sites, and seized a lot of safrole in the city.”

According to Pen Rath, investigators found that the confiscated safrole was imported by drug dealers across the porous Cambodian-Thai border.

Harvested to make Ecstasy, Cambodia’s trees are felled one by one

September 3rd, 2009
By Sam Campbell
GlobalPost

International drug trade drives illicit safrole-oil factories deep in the Cardamom mountains.

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The pulse of dance-club music plays like a jungle beat, as thumping bass notes flirt with flashing lights, liquor and ecstasy of the pharmaceutical kind.

Miles and miles away, a little-known multi-billion dollar battle is playing out in the remote wilderness of Cambodia, linking the club scene to the jungle in a more nefarious way.

Clandestine factories deep in the Cardamom Mountains of western Cambodia are producing safrole oil — also known as sassafras oil — the main ingredient in the party drug Ecstasy.

The recreational drug produces a euphoria its users say is so good even yawning is unparalleled while under its influence. But this euphoria is not without its downside — and not just the toll it takes on the brain, which at least one animal study shows can still be detected seven years from the time of use.

There is a growing, and perhaps just as deadly, price being paid by the local environment. Trees containing the viscous, fragrant, safrole oil are felled during the manufacturing process. Their oil-rich roots are mechanically shredded and boiled in large cauldrons. The resulting mixture is then distilled over fires that require enormous quantities of firewood to fuel them.

Safrole oil manufacturing is a big business, and as a result, severe deforestation and erosion scar the mountainous areas around the factories. The ramshackle, jury-rigged distilleries are perilous at best, and explosions are not unknown. Nearby streams that provide water for processing are soon fouled by factory waste, their delicate ecosystems poisoned. Even the oil itself is carcinogenic.

Though small-scale production of safrole oil for traditional remedies has been going on for centuries in Cambodia, the industrial production of oil destined for the narcotics trade has been ebbing and flowing since the late 1990s. In recent years, authorities have taken action against the safrole industry with some recent high-profile raids highlighting the issue.

A June 12, 2009 raid, led jointly by conservation NGO Fauna and Flora International and the Cambodian authorities, netted 142 barrels containing 5.7 tons of sassafras oil. Seized from a secluded house in the isolated village of O’ Kambou in the western Cardamom mountains, the haul could have produced 44 million tablets of Ecstasy with a total street value of $1.2 billion.

Most safrole oil distilleries are found in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in the Cardamoms and is where the majority of oil-bearing trees remain, according to FFI.

FFI and the Cambodian authorities have an ongoing cooperation. They began putting pressure on the industry in 2004, although a December 2008 investigation showed that production had again surged. Aerial flyovers around that time revealed 16 factories in operation. Subsequent raids have now reduced that number to four, said FFI Wildlife Sanctuary Technical Advisor Tim Wood. At the height of the industry in 2006, he added, there were at least 75 distilleries in the area.

In June 2008, 1,278 barrels of sassafras oil were destroyed in Pursat province by Australian police, environmental NGOs and Cambodian authorities. Tim Morris, Australian federal police assistant commissioner, said the haul would have produced an estimated 245 million Ecstasy tablets with a street value of $7.6 billion.

The western Cardamoms are part of southeast Asia’s largest mainland contiguous rainforest and serve as the last refuge for more than 80 of the world’s most threatened species, including Asian elephant, Indochinese tiger and Siamese crocodile, according to FFI.

Safrole oil, which is also used in the production of cosmetics and in the traditional Khmer remedies, is produced from the aromatic oil of a tree known in Khmer as Mreah prew phnom, which experts think is Cinnamomum parthenoxylon. The species is generally considered rare, and in Vietnam, it is classified as critically endangered. It has no common name in English and no one knows how many of the trees are left in the world.

Four Mreah prew phnom trees are needed to produce a single, 40-gallon barrel of safrole oil. An additional six trees of lesser value are felled to use as firewood in the processing of a single Mreah prew phnom tree.

Secrecy and geography conspire to keep the illicit safrole-oil trade under wraps. Oil is lugged out by human mules, often over many miles of punishing jungle terrain, to roads where it is smuggled through to Thailand or Vietnam. One factory worker, who requested anonymity, called the back-breaking work “so hard we wanted to die.”

Poverty-stricken recruits are paid $25 per month plus cigarettes, the worker said, and often have no idea of the oil’s true value or purpose. Once out of Cambodia, high-tech laboratories purify the sassafras oil and produce tablets of Ecstasy.

FFI’s Tim Wood says the business is run by highly organized trans-national crime syndicates. The same shadowy syndicates are thought to be involved in human and wildlife trafficking, drug smuggling and the illegal weapons trade.

Experts say Vietnamese criminals moved their operations to Cambodia over the past decade after ravaging Vietnam’s forests, essentially clearing them of Mreah prew phnom trees. Cambodian authorities have identified a well-connected ethnic Vietnamese kingpin at work in Cambodia, but so far he has eluded arrest, according to FFI.

Teams of local rangers have closed dozens of safrole oil factories. Chap Siet is one such ranger, who has worked in the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary for the last 10 years. He says he thinks about future generations and feels compelled to protect Cambodia’s natural resources.

“Currently these natural resources are threatened by people who have power. These powerful people collude with offenders to destroy natural resources through wildlife poaching, illegal logging, land grabbing, and Mreah prew phnom oil production within the protected areas,” he said.

Chap Siet said he faces many difficulties patroling the forests.

“We often patrol in heavy rain and we suffer from many diseases such as malaria and typhoid. There is a shortage of patrol equipment and we need more rangers,” he said.

In a post-conflict country showing the scars of war, taking on the safrole mafia is certainly not for the faint of heart.

“Sassafras processing plants are frequently guarded by armed men and even booby-trapped with antipersonnel mines,” said David Bradfield, manager of the Cardamom Mountains Wildlife Sanctuary Project, which is overseen by FFI.

In March, a wildlife sanctuary ranger was killed. At that time, Environment Minister Mok Mareth pledged the government’s dedication to preserving natural resources, though the high demand for the illicit substance continues to drive the market.

According to the 2009 U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report, somewhere between 72 and 137 metric tons of Ecstasy were produced globally in 2007, the most recent year from which they have compiled data. It’s hard to say how much of that was produced in Southeast Asia, let alone Cambodia, but the UNODC does say that the stabilization of production in developed countries, like the U.S., has led to a spike in production in developing countries, many of which can be found in Southeast Asia. Some of the world’s largest clandestine factories were found and dismantled in that region, they reported.

“This development is of concern as it relates to the potential for future growth, given that many of these countries are emerging economies with growing middle-classes that may represent lucrative new markets for ‘ecstasy,’” a UNODC report said.

UNODC also estimates that between 11 and 23.5 million people worldwide used Ecstasy at least once in 2007. Of that number, between 2.3 and 6 million were in East and Southeast Asia.

Cambodia burns 3 tons of herbs used to make drugs

2009-06-02
Associated Press

Cambodian authorities on Tuesday torched nearly three tons of an herb used to produce "herbal ecstasy" as part of a campaign to wipe out designer drugs recently uncovered in the country.

The bonfire destroyed ephedra, used to make "herbal ecstasy" pills that have been blamed for deaths in the United States and elsewhere, as well as another one ton of the chemical thionyl chloride, which is used to make methamphetamine. "Herbal ecstasy" typically refers to a combination of stimulants _ often including ephedra.

The ephedra was seized in raids earlier this year in eastern and southern Cambodia, said Deputy Prime Minister Ke Kim Yan, who chairs the National Committee for Combating Drugs.

Officials at the ceremony, which included Australian drug experts, said the ephedra herbs were not grown in Cambodia but had been trafficked from China.

Authorities seized the thionyl chloride during a raid on a laboratory on an isolated farm west of Phnom Penh in April. It was Cambodia's first discovery of a laboratory producing synthetic drugs.

Cambodian police burn four tons of seized 'ecstasy' ingredients

Tue, 02 Jun 2009
DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodian authorities on Tuesday burned four tons of ingredients used in the drug ecstasy after a series of raids that led to the arrest of four people, including two Chinese citizens. Mek Dara, secretary general of the National Authority for Combating Drugs, said military police burned three tons of the sassafras plant, from which the ecstasy chemical ingredient MDMA is derived, along with one ton of other chemicals used to make the drug.

"We conducted a series of raids in Phnom Penh, Kampong Cham province and Takeo province over the weekend and arrested four people involved in importing this plant from China and growing it in Cambodia," he said. "Two Chinese citizens were arrested in these raids along with a Cambodian man and a Cambodian woman."

Mek Dara said the destruction of the ingredients Tuesday morning in Phnom Penh was supervised by Australian and US drug-trafficking specialists.

He said the four suspects were detained and would face court this week.

Cambodia last year introduced legislation to ban the trade in oil from the sassafras plant, which was being illicitly exported to Vietnam and Thailand.

Ecstasy threatens Cambodia’s jungles

One of the sassafras oil distilling factory in the jungles of Cambodia. Courtesy of Fauna & Flora International

January 14. 2009
Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent
The National (Arab Emirate)

PHNOM PENH // The illegal drugs trade is causing significant environmental damage to parts of Cambodia, according to an international aid agency.

In south-west Cambodia the production of sassafras oil, which is used when making the recreational drug ecstasy, is destroying trees, the local inhabitants’ livelihoods and wreaking untold ecological damage, according to David Bradfield, an adviser to the Wildlife Sanctuaries Project of Fauna and Flora International, who is based in the area.

The sassafras oil comes from the Cardamom Mountain area, one of the last forest wildernesses in mainland South East Asia.

“The illicit distilling of sassafras oil in these mountains is slowly but surely killing the forests and wildlife,” Mr Bradfield said. “The production of sassafras oil is a huge operation, which affects not only the area where the distilleries are actually located, but ripples outward, leaving devastation and destruction in its wake.”

The livelihoods of more than 15,000 people who depend on hunting and gathering to survive in the wildlife sanctuary are at risk from the sassafras production operations, which pollute water and kill wildlife.

Cambodian sassafras oil is highly sought as it is of the highest quality – more than 90 per cent pure, according to the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Cambodia, Lars Pedersen. It is a major precursor drug used in the production of ecstasy.

“Massive amounts of sassafras oil are smuggled every year into Vietnam and Thailand from Cambodia,” he said.

Sassafras Oil is made from the roots of the rare Mreah Prew Phnom tree – also known as Cinnamomum parathenoxylon. The roots are first chopped into small blocks of wood and shredded into fibre consistency. This is then put into large metal vats two metres high and about three metres wide. It is distilled over a wood-driven fire for at least five days before the gas is cooled and the oil created.

Apart from depleting the Mreah Prew Phnom, large numbers of surrounding trees are felled to maintain the fires, undermining the area’s biodiversity. At the current rate, Mr Bradfield said, the Mreah Prew Phnom and other species would become extinct in the near future.

Animal life is also threatened. Deep in the jungle, the factories, which have two or three distilling pots each, are heavily guarded and require dozens workers to maintain the stills. These workers live on the surrounding wildlife in the area, with many involved in the commercial poaching of such rare animals as tigers, pangolins, peacocks, pythons, wild cats and wild fowls.

Streams and rivers are being polluted too by the effluent from the oil production. “There are frequently dead fish and frogs floating in the streams near these distilleries,” Mr Bradfield said.

The contaminated water from this area flows down into the rest of Cambodia through the Mekong and Ton Le Sap rivers and, said Mr Bradfield, poses a threat to populations downstream who rely on the rivers for drinking water. “Water tests in the area need to be carried out as a matter of urgency,” he said.

Four years ago the Cambodian government made the production of sassafras oil illegal in an effort to protect the Mreah Prew Phnom tree. Since then the authorities have tried to eliminate the illicit production factories in the Cardamom Mountains with the help of international organisations.

“Law enforcement is the key to suppressing the illegal trade in sassafras oil,” said Mr Pedersen, the Cambodia UNODC chief. “It’s a very lucrative trade, worth millions and millions of dollars.”

About 50 rangers from the forestry ministry, with the support of independent conservation groups and the UN, are currently policing the area; Mr Bradfield refers to them as “the foot soldiers protecting the forests”.

The rangers spend half the month patrolling the dense, leech-infested jungle of the Cardamom Mountains for a meagre salary, Mr Bradfield said, and face the threat of the machine-gun-carrying mercenaries who guard the factories. Many of the factories are also surrounded by anti-personnel mines.

Flora and Fauna International has supported the rangers for years, providing them with uniforms, equipment and training. They assist in building ranger stations and provide technical advice. The UN Development Fund also supported the project between 2004 and 2006.

The rangers’ task is made all the more difficult because of the potential profits smugglers can make from the trade and the lengths they will go to protect their product.

A year ago the Thai authorities seized more than 50 tonnes of sassafras oil near the Cambodian border on its way to China and the US, according to western anti-narcotics agents who declined to be identified, reported to be worth US$150,000 (Dh550,000).

Had it found its destination, where it would have been used to make ecstasy – it would have produced 7.5 million tablets worth more than $150 million, a western anti-narcotics agent said.

ljagan@thenational.ae

Hunt for ecstasy drug ingredient destroying Cambodia's jungles

Fri, 27 Jun 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - Clubbers may claim it is the ultimate love drug, but conservationists Friday warned every tablet of MDMA, known as ecstasy, helps destroy Cambodia's already dwindling rainforest. In a highly publicized burn earlier this month, Cambodia destroyed enough confiscated sassafras oil, a key ingredient in the illegal drug, to produce 245 million ecstasy tablets with a street value of approximately 7 billion dollars.

But conservation group Flora and Fauna International (FFI), which has been a key instigator in cracking down on the trade, said in a press release received Friday the drug's users may still not understand the serious damage their habit did to the environment.

"Sassafras oil, produced by boiling the roots of rare Mreah Prew Phnom trees, is illegally distilled in (Cambodian) jungles ... for processing into a chemical used to make ecstasy," the group said.

"To make matters worse, the distillation process itself uses enormous quantities of fuel wood from other rainforest trees."

As well, FFI said, sassafras oil processing plants are typically located beside streams, polluting the pristine water sources of the protected Cardamom mountains in the country's south-west.

The Mreah Prew Phnom tree (cinnamomum parthenoxylon) is a rare tree rated as data deficient by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

FFI said it supports 49 wildlife officers to root out illegal factories and would continue its efforts to keep them from reopening.

It said the Cardamoms cover over 2-million hectares, and its destruction would potentially release 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide - a serious blow in the fight against climate change.

Thank you Australian Fed Police for burning carcinogenic sassafras oil in Cambodia

The "ecstasy oil" goes up in smoke in Cambodia. (Photo: Australian Federal Police)

$7b 'ecstasy oil' stash goes up in smoke

June 20, 2008
Daniel Emerson
The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

Mr Morris admitted the substance was carcinogenic and the thick plume of smoke produced during the burn was not good for the environment

It's put a huge dent in the global manufacture of ecstasy but it's done the environment no good at all.

Australia Federal Police say they have destroyed a stockpile of a substance capable of creating $7.6 billion worth of the illegal drug.

Six AFP officers travelled to Cambodia this week to help burn more than 1000 drums of oil rich in a substance called safrole, which could have been used to make 245 million ecstasy tablets.

AFP assistant commissioner Tim Morris admitted the substance was carcinogenic and the thick plume of smoke produced during the burn was not good for the environment.

"But there doesn't seem to be any other way to dispose of this chemical and it was done in a remote area away from the population," he said.

He said four technicians and two forensic chemists were working in shifts helping Cambodian authorities burn 33 tonnes of the oil this week at Pursat, 170 kilometres west of the capital, Phnom Penh.

He said the AFP had been helping train the Cambodians in safely dealing with volatile clandestine drug laboratories when the Asian authorities realised their Australian counterparts could help them dispose of the drums seized during raids.

"It's incredible isn't it?" Mr Morris said. "It's a huge amount, there's no doubt about that.

"The majority of this [substance] would have been moved into neighbouring counties for further processing and it's certainly likely that this safrole would have been used in the production of ecstasy that would have ended up in Australia, for sure."

The AFP supplied the special equipment used in the burn, including chemical suits, breathing apparatus, decontamination showers, air compressors, generators and gas monitoring and analysis equipment.

The sweltering conditions meant the burning of the 1278 drums could only take place early in the morning or in the evening because the officers had to work in the hot full-length suits.

Safrole-rich oil is derived from the roots of two varieties of the sassafras tree, a rare species in Cambodia which only grows in the Cardamom Mountains in the country's south-west near the Thailand border.

Mr Morris said the Cambodian authorities were keen to stamp out the safrole trade because the sassafras tree was endangered and it was poor villagers who were invariably involved in handling it in clandestine laboratories which often exploded.

He said the Cambodian authorities had dismantled more than 50 clandestine laboratories and arrested 60 to 100 people involved in safrole production in the past few years.

Australian Federal Police wipes out stockpile of ecstasy oils in Cambodia

AFP wipes out stockpile of ecstasy oils

June 20, 2008
AAP (Australia)

More than 1,000 barrels of an oil that could have made billions of US dollars worth of ecstasy tablets have been destroyed in a joint operation by Australian Federal Police and Cambodian authorities.

Up in smoke went 33 tonnes of safrole-rich oil - enough to have made 245 million tablets - in the operation conducted at Pursat in western Cambodia this week.

Police said the oil, produced from local trees, was contained in 1,278 barrels and could have produced ecstasy tablets with an Australian street value of $7.6 billion.

The AFP says a significant blow has been dealt to the trade of illicit drugs in the region and the operation is an excellent example of federal police working with international policing partners.

"I commend the coordinated effort by Cambodian authorities to seize the oil, break the production chain and reduce the dependency on income from illegal drug manufacture," AFP national manager border international Tim Morris said in a statement.

"This oil is not only a precursor in ecstasy production, it also has considerable social and ecological ramifications for Cambodia's people and environment."

Mr Morris said the oil was known to be carcinogenic and mutagenic (capable of inducing genetic mutation) and the people working in the clandestine laboratories where the drugs are manufactured were among Cambodia's poorest farmers.

Safrole-rich oil is derived from the roots of two varieties of the Sassafras tree, classified as a rare species which only grows in Cambodia's Cardamom Mountains.

To distil this oil from the roots, the entire tree is cut down with the timber used to fire the clandestine laboratory furnaces.

Much of the oil ends up in Vietnam, China and Thailand, where it is not illegal, for refinement.

The AFP team of four technicians and two forensic chemists from the Specialist Response Amphetamine Type Stimulants (SRATS) team began burning the oil stockpile this week, 170km west of the capital Phnom Penh.

To conduct the operation, the AFP members transported specialist equipment from Australia including chemical suits, breathing apparatus, decontamination showers, air compressors, generators and gas monitoring and analysis equipment.

The operation took several days and was conducted in the early morning and evening because of sweltering conditions.

Cambodian authorities had been working since 2002 to stem the distillation of safrole-rich oil, the AFP said.

They have detected and dismantled more than 50 clandestine laboratories capable of producing up to 60 litres a day.

The single-largest seizure was made in April this year during a three-week operation by the Cambodian National Police, military police, Cambodian prosecutors, forestry and environment officials in an uninhabited area of the western region.

Cambodia's National Authority for Combating Drugs then approached the AFP to assist with the safe disposal of the oil stockpile.