Police Swoop on ‘Bomb Kit’ Pair in Dawn Drug Raids

By GAVIN MADELEY

A COUPLE caught selling ‘terror bomb kits’ from a website are at the centre of an international investigation into the production of the drug ‘crystal meth’.

Kerry Ann Shanks, 28, and Brian Howes, 43, were exposed by the Scottish Daily Mail last year for selling potentially lethal chemicals over the Internet without making any attempt to find out customers’ details.

The Mail was able to buy enough raw materials from Lab Chemicals International to make a device one expert said would ’cause mayhem’.

Yesterday, in a series of dramatic early-morning raids, officers from Central Scotland Police swooped on several addresses in Bo’ness, West Lothian, and arrested the pair.

The arrests were made on behalf of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and follow a seven-month operation that has spanned the globe.

Howes and Shanks are due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today to face extradition proceedings to the U.S.

Several roads in Bo’ness were sealed off while forensics teams wearing protective suits searched three premises: a bungalow in Bridgeness Road, the Bo’ness Motor Museum and a funeral parlourinthe town’s Corbiehall Road.

Officers suspect chemicals that are legal in the UK but are understoodto be illegal in the U.S. are being exported across the Atlantic and to Europe and Australia, where they are used to make banned drugs, particularly methamphetamine.

The drug also known as ‘ crystal meth’, ‘ice’, or ‘Tina’ can lead to depression, paranoia, violent behaviour, kidney failure and internal bleeding. Earlier this month, it was reclassified from Class B to Class A in the UK, meaning anyone caught dealing or making it faces prison.

Detective Superintendent Dave Duffey, director of intelligence for Cleveland Police, which was also involved in the inquiry, said: ‘This has been a complex and wide-ranging investigation, which first began two years ago.

‘ It has involved a range of law enforcement agencies including numerous police forces throughout the world, particularly the police in Arizona.’ Mr Duffey said it followed raids last June on the couple’s distribution centre in Grangemouth, Stirlingshire, about seven miles from Bo’ness.

In August, the Scottish Daily Mail revealed how easy it was to buy potentially lethal chemicals from Lab Chemicals International’s website.

LCI previously known as Raw Chemicals International failed to ask questions about customers’ backgroundsraising fears that terrorist cells could use the site to buy small amounts of chemicals then pool them with others to create a large device.

Dr Colin Pulham, a chemistry expert at Edinburgh University, said at the time: ‘The kind of quantities here would be enough to create an explosive device. It would not be massive, but carefully placed could cause mayhem.’

Confronted by the Mail at the company’s business address, Shanks said: ‘All chemicals are dangerous, even the ones in your kitchen cupboard.’ Central Scotland Police stressed that yesterday’s operation had posed no danger to the public and that no evidence of crystal meth production in Scotland had been found during the investigation.

g.madeley@dailymail.co.uk

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