P lab booby-traps alarm police

Police raided a P lab in Rotorua yesterday. Officers' faces are blanked out because of the danger of reprisals. Picture / Alan Gibson

Police are alarmed at a new criminal trend to booby-trap places used to make the drug P and are reviewing safety procedures for armed offenders squads.

Yesterday police found a home-made bomb during a P-lab raid in Rotorua, bringing to three the number of suspected explosive devices found in drug raids around the country in the last three weeks.

They say the devices, designed to maim and kill, are an alarming move towards the type of booby-trapping techniques used by overseas manufacturers of illegal drugs.

The improvised explosive devices, and a growing number of attempts by P manufacturers to destroy labs as they are raided, are said to be creating grave dangers for police and the public.

This threat adds to the dangers already lurking when volatile, toxic chemicals involved in making pure methamphetamine are present.

The booby traps have prompted police national headquarters to launch a review of safety procedures for armed offenders squad officers dealing with clandestine drug manufacturers.

Superintendent Ray Van Beynen, commander of national tactical groups at police headquarters in Wellington, said the presence of explosive devices was worrying not only because criminals or police could get injured.

"There's also a real danger of an innocent third party being involved," he said.

Mr Van Beynen has launched a review of squad procedures for dealing with clandestine labs, saying it was begun partly as a result of bomb-like devices being found.

"In recent weeks we have discovered these type of items which have not been seen before," he said.

"The offenders are taking serious precautions against police or anyone interfering with their chemicals or equipment."

The need for the review was reinforced at 5am yesterday when armed offenders squad officers surrounded a property in a semi-rural area near Rotorua Airport.

"As they [the officers] were attempting to gain entry to the house, the occupants were in the process of destroying a methamphetamine lab by throwing chemicals and equipment into an open fire," said Senior Sergeant Dennis Murphy of Rotorua.

Mr Murphy said toxic smoke inside the house made the situation hazardous for police, and the danger was heightened with the discovery of a sawn-off shotgun and a "vicious" home-made bomb inside the glovebox of a car outside.

The Auckland bomb squad was called to defuse the bomb, which resembled a Molotov cocktail and contained shotgun pellets.

Three men - all patched Mongrel Mob members - were arrested and charged with possessing a shotgun and explosives, and are likely to face further drugs-related charges.

The trio, aged 20, 21 and 25, had to be decontaminated by Fire Service staff and a policewoman escorting one of them to Rotorua police station required hospital treatment after inhaling toxic fumes off the man's clothing.

Mr Murphy said it was uncertain whether the bomb was intended for use against police officers or rivals threatening the drug operation, but the underlying purpose of the device was clear. "It's designed to harm people, not to damage property," he said. "It's intent is to maim or kill."

He said the recent discoveries of such devices in P lab busts was worrying.

"Guns are one thing, but anti-personnel bombs are another."

The other two suspected explosive devices found in busts in the last three weeks were in South Auckland.

Only one has been confirmed as a bomb but both were found in buildings where P was being manufactured.

Detective Matt McLeod, one of the officers involved in yesterday's bust, said putting explosive devices in buildings with chemicals for making P was hugely risky.

"It makes the lab more volatile," he said.

"If you've got these things handy, anything can happen."

He said overseas drug manufacturers commonly used booby traps powered by explosives.