NDLEA busts Meth lab network, nabs fleeing Mexican kingpin at Lagos Airport

• Marwa: No safe haven for cartels in Nigeria

From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has dismantled another industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory and arrested a Mexican drug kingpin caught trying to flee Nigeria through the Lagos airport the latest blow to a transnational cartel network that has been probing the country’s forests and rural communities for a foothold.

NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Marwa (Rtd), represented by the Agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, briefed journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, disclosing that operatives arrested Arturo Carrera Loaiza on August 19 as he attempted to leave the country.

Loaiza had reportedly told investigators he came to Nigeria on the invitation of a Nigerian contact, “Henry,” for a restaurant business, denying any link to methamphetamine production. Photographic evidence, however, showed him in a laboratory coat surrounded by production equipment.

The arrest was the product of months of investigation stretching back to earlier operations this year: 16th May, Ogun State: Three Mexican nationals and seven Nigerian collaborators arrested at a forest hideout. 17th June, Tapa village, Oyo State: A Mexican methamphetamine expert, 56-year-old Jose Villa Ochoa, and four Nigerian collaborators arrested at a clandestine lab with confirmed quantities of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals.

Ochoa’s interrogation identified Loaiza as the man who recruited him into Nigeria’s drug trade. Investigators established that Loaiza entered the country on 10th June alongside another Mexican national, Jose Ceballos Perez.

Image metadata recovered from photographs of Loaiza in a lab coat led operatives to a property under construction in Isiata Ugoni Okposi, Ebonyi State, linked to one John Samuel Ivo Okike.

A raid on August 30 found a suspicious structure built over the septic tank area and persistent chemical odours on the site.
A recovered CCTV memory card sealed the case: footage showed Loaiza on the premises, and captured Okike directing the relocation of chemicals and equipment out of the property at about 9 p.m. on 21st August.

Following the trail to an isolated house in a neighbouring community, kept by one Nwanja Obasi, operatives recovered a large cache of methamphetamine-related materials, including:

A dehydrator with methamphetamine residue and three empty units
442.8kg Acetone, 37.1kg Toluene, 200kg P2B, 31.5kg Hydrochloric acid, and other precursor chemicals

Condensing units, a fabricated reaction pot, weighing scales, mixers, and a matching blue lab coat Marwa’s warned that

“Nigeria will not be allowed to become a haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their laboratories from other jurisdictions into our forests and rural communities.”

Describing the Agency’s forensic and intelligence work as “more than a match” for the cartels, he commended the Special Operations Unit, Strike Force, Forensics, and the Oyo, Ogun and Ebonyi State Commands, and vowed to pursue the network’s financiers and local enablers.

The Agency renewed its appeal to residents of rural and forested communities to report suspicious structures or chemical odours via its toll-free line (080010203040) or email (info@ndlea.gov.ng).

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