A drugs laboratory in Rotterdam which was dismantled in April this year was producing anabolic steroids for bodybuilders as well as ecstasy and amphetamines, broadcaster Nos said on Thursday.

‘We have never come across this combination before,’ a public prosecution spokesman told the broadcaster.

Herman Ram, a spokesman for the Dutch doping authority, says he is extremely concerned that banned hormones are now being produced illegally in the Netherlands. ‘There is a mixture of different types of criminality and possibly also chemicals,’ he said.

Police came across the lab during an investigation into stolen cars which had been involved in a number of gangland killings. The trail led to a man in Spijkenisse and then to the drugs lab in a warehouse in Hoogvliet.

Scientist at the national forensic institute have now determined that steroids were being made there as well as recreational drugs.

According to the doping authority, most illegal hormones in the Netherlands came from China. Ram says the trade should be given a higher priority. ‘Just one person has been prosecuted over the past two years,’ he said.