GEORGE TOWN, Sept 25 – Police raided a house believed to have been turned into a drug laboratory in Bukit Mertajam near here and seized an assortment of drugs worth RM769,250 with the arrest of two siblings. Penang acting police chief Datuk Roslee Chik said police based on intelligence and after a month of surveillance raided a house in Taman Seri Rambai around 5.30 pm on Thursday where a woman aged 44 and her family were staying.
He said police detained the woman although they did not find any drugs in the house, after finding a remote control device for a gate and keys to another house situated about 500 metres away. “A set of keys and an electricity bill with a different address were found on her. She led us to another house about 500m away, which they were renting for RM700 a month. It was used as a processing lab for ecstasy pills and counterfeit medicine in the past four months,” he told a press conference here today.
DCP Roslee said the police team recovered 7,135 ecstasy pills, 2.13kg of ecstasy powder and 1.3kg of caffeine powder, with a total market value of RM769,250, from the house. “We also seized four packing machines and some equipment used to process ecstasy,” he added. Roslee said police nabbed the woman’s brother aged 46 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 5.15 am the following day, Friday, when he tried to escape to Miri, Sarawak after finding out that the police had raided the drug lab.
He said investigations showed that the brother and sister had been active for the past four months and the drugs were meant for the local market. “We are trying to determine where the siblings obtained the knowledge to make the drugs and counterfeit medicine. Urine tests showed that the two were not addicts but the man has a criminal record for rioting with a weapon. They have been remanded for seven days and will be investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952,” he said.
