The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has dismantled another industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory and arrested a Mexican drug kingpin attempting to flee the country through Lagos airport.
Briefing journalists in Lagos on Tuesday, NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd), represented by Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, said the breakthrough followed months of investigation into a network behind clandestine labs uncovered this year.
Marwa recalled that operatives arrested three Mexicans and seven Nigerians in a forest hideout in Ogun on May 16, and another Mexican, Jose Villa Ochoa, 56, with four collaborators in Tapa village, Ibarapa North, Oyo State on June 17.
Investigations by the Special Operations Unit showed Ochoa was recruited by Mexican kingpin Arturo Carrera Loaiza, who entered Nigeria on June 10 alongside another Mexican, Jose Ceballos Perez.
On August 19, operatives tracked and arrested Loaiza at Lagos airport. He claimed he came for a restaurant business and denied links to meth production.
But investigators recovered images of him in a blue lab coat amid meth equipment. Metadata led operatives to a property under construction at Isiata Ugoni Okposi, Ebonyi, linked to John Samuel Ivo Okike.
On August 30, operatives raided the property. CCTV footage showed Loaiza in the lab coat and Okike directing movement of chemicals and equipment at about 9p.m on August 21.
Acting on intelligence, operatives traced the materials to a house kept by Nwanja Obasi and recovered 442.8kg acetone, 37.1kg toluene, 200kg P2B, hydrochloric acid and other chemicals, plus dehydrators, condensers, reaction pot and lab coat.
“There will be no space for transnational drug cartels in Nigeria,” Marwa vowed.
