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A property in B.C. where police discovered the production of methamphetamine 'super labs'.Police handout

After four years, Ronald Carlow is still missing, but the province's police anti-gang unit says the search for the Vancouver man has yielded astonishing discoveries including a criminal enterprise selling do-it-yourself methamphetamine labs.

That 2010 discovery was disclosed for the first time Wednesday as the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of British Columbia talked about a drug operation they have cracked as a result of inquiries in the case of Mr. Carlow.

Although police believe Mr. Carlow is dead, they are hoping publicity about the case will generate public tips to explain what happened to him.

"At the end of the day, we still have a missing person," Staff-Sergeant Joanne Boyle of the Vancouver Police Department told a news conference held at the headquarters of the enforcement- unit, whose members include municipal forces and the RCMP.

Police say Mr. Carlow had some associates to parties in the drug enterprise, which they say had links to Eastern Europe they declined to be specific about.

Mr. Carlow's sister, also present at the news conference, called her brother the "one piece still missing" in the case, and said her family is hoping for closure. "Let us bury him and let us bring him home," Loretta Copley said, weeping.

The drug-to-go labs were packaged in plastic bins discovered at a locker in a Surrey warehouse. Police also found an operational drug lab in Surrey. They were unable to say how much the labs would have sold for or how long the operation was underway.

Superintendent Pat Fogarty, head of CFSEU's organized crime division, said police have never before seen meth labs being built for sale. "This is somewhat unique," he said.

The investigation also led to a property about 40 kilometres north of Kamloops, where a couple with a two-year-old child had 32 firearms and were guarding an underground bunker that was to be made into a drug lab. There was also an operational drug lab there.

When police arrested the couple last year, they found guns, ammunition and a grenade in the child's room. The child has been placed in social-services custody.

The property was equipped with pit bulls and surveillance cameras. "It was set up like a military compound in terms of protecting themselves," said Supt. Fogarty, suggesting they were as concerned about associates in the underworld as police.

Two people have been arrested. Ante Dragusica, 34, of Surrey is facing 10 drugs and firearms charges.

The child's father, 39-year-old Ivan Georgiev, has pleaded guilty to various firearms charges and was sentenced in February to three years.

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