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.
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