France, Jan. 22 -- The year-long crackdown, announced on Wednesday by Europol, saw officers take down 24 industrial-scale laboratories and seize roughly 1,000 tonnes of chemicals used to produce street drugs including MDMA, amphetamine and methamphetamine.

More than 85 people were arrested, among them two suspected ringleaders from Poland.

"I've been in this business for a while. This is by far the largest ever operation we did against synthetic drug production and distribution," said Andy Kraag, head of Europol's European Serious and Organised Crime Centre.

"I think this is genuinely a massive blow to organised crime groups involved in drug trafficking, specifically of synthetic drugs."

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