Crime scene: police say Sydney drug labs are "like Breaking Bad". Photo: John Veage
NSW police admit the proliferation of suburban drug labs is beginning to resemble the TV series Breaking Bad, about a chemistry teacher who cooks up meth in his backyard.
The comment by NSW Drug Squad commander Detective Superintendent Nick Bingham comes after explosions in two suspected Sydney drug labs within 24 hours.
Two men, aged 37 and 40, suffered horrendous burns in the first blast, at Barden Ridge in Sydney's south on Sunday night.
They were both listed as critical after emergency surgery at Royal North Shore Hospital.
A third man was burnt in a separate explosion in Bankstown on Monday afternoon.
Det Supt Bingham says NSW police are finding an average of two drug labs a week - 83 so far this year.
About three-quarters of them are in suburban areas.
"It certainly does look like an episode out of Breaking Bad with the explosions we've had at Barden Ridge, and we had another one overnight," he told ABC radio.
"We're going in this morning to determine whether (the most recent one) was a lab or not but it appears that it may well have been."
Det Supt Bingham says the operations range from a "high school lab to the full scientific apparatus".
Most of them are of a commercial scale, including the Bankstown set-up where police have allegedly found sophisticated equipment.
"We've certainly arrested chemistry students," Det Supt Bingham said.
"Anywhere from someone with no background in chemistry but they've learnt it off the internet (to) some highly-skilled lay chemists who learn their trade through the criminal element."
He said many of the solvents and chemicals required to make amphetamines were toxic and highly flammable, especially during the evaporation process.
"We've had quite a few explosions where people have died or been seriously injured," he said.
AAP
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