TORONTO - Police sealed off a Mississauga, Ont. industrial park on Wednesday after stumbling onto an enormous illicit drug lab described as “a meth amphetamine factory.”

Dozens of officers from Toronto and Peel regional police swarmed into the nondescript rented unit on Sismet Road, in the Dixie Road and Highway 401 area, late Tuesday and quickly realized that they had uncovered an industrial-scale drug operation.

“We’re not talking about a chemistry lab in somebody’s basement,” said Staff Insp. Don Campbell, head of the Toronto drug squad. “This was a meth amphetamine factory.”

Police found more than 80 drums of chemicals used to make the drug, deep freeze units to store the raw product, two labs set up to “cook” the chemicals into the final product and huge quantities of methyl amphetamine and ecstasy.

“This was a large clandestine laboratory,” said Campbell. “It will take us a couple of days to determine how large an operation this is.”

The drug, a potentially toxic and explosive brew of chemicals in its raw form, was still bubbling in large vats when police burst in. The first officers inside quickly vacated the building and called for hazardous materials teams to help clear the lab safely.

A “hot zone” around the drug lab was evacuated and neighbouring buildings were cleared of their occupants.

Four men were arrested leaving the building and charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence. They include:

Konstantinos Chalaidopoulos, 35; George Chalaidopoulos, 32; Ho-Won Tam, 47 - all of Toronto - and Michel Berthiaune, 63, of Grandville, Que.

The raid was quickly expanded to include two industrial spaces in adjacent buildings where police found thousands of ecstasy pills and several large machines for making more.

Toronto and Peel police have now called in the provincial police crime lab, firefighters, RCMP and Health Canada experts to help with the investigation and clean up of the site.

Campbell said it will take at least three days to sort through the clandestine lab. “We’re taking it slow and we’re taking it very cautiously,” he said.

“The hazards associated with methyl amphetamine labs are enormous. The immediate danger is fire, explosions … we have chemists there and we’re neutralizing it now.”

The raid was set off by a routine traffic stop Tuesday afternoon, when a uniformed officer noticed something suspicious inside the vehicle. That led investigators to the Mississauga address of the drug lab.

Chemical stains on the walls and other indicators lead police to believe the lab had been in operation for at least a year.

Some ecstasy seized in Toronto area over past few months contained traces of amphetamines, suggesting they were produced in the Mississauga lab, but Campbell said most of the drugs were likely shipped elsewhere.

“I don’t know if the drugs were destined for Toronto or the GTA,” said Campbell. “We have been finding that ecstasy has been manufactured in the Toronto area and then exported, but I don’t know that part of it yet.”

He said other police forces will be called in to assist in the investigation and anticipates more arrests.

Detectives are looking into links between the drug lab and organized crime, he said. “This was a sophisticated, organized criminal organization:

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