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For the first time in Quebec, police have raided an illegal drug lab that was producing fentanyl capsules.

The lab was raided in the Eastern Townships municipality of Potton last Friday, where police found two tablet presses, an encapsulating machine and a kilogram of what tests later showed to be a mix of Xanax and fentanyl.

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Though fentanyl — a synthetic opioid commonly referred to as being 40 times stronger than heroin — has been seized before in Quebec, the raids were the first time police have dismantled a lab found to be packaging the drug. The drug is usually imported in powdered form, then mixed in Canada and pressed into tablet form.

“Fentanyl is becoming more and more known, especially in Western Canada, but this is a first for Quebec,” Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Aurélie Guindon said on Wednesday.

Last week’s raids, conducted by the SQ and Boucherville police after a joint investigation was launched in November, also targeted illegal labs producing synthetic drugs in Longueuil, Boucherville and St-Roch-de-Richelieu.