Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has dismantled another industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory and arrested a Mexican drug kingpin, who was attempting to flee the country through the Lagos airport.
The Chairman of the NDLEA, retired Brig.-Gen. Buba Marwa, told journalists on Tuesday in Lagos that the operation was a fresh one that further exposed the desperation by transnational cartels to infiltrate Nigeria’s forests and rural communities.
He said that the breakthrough followed months of painstaking investigation into a wider criminal network behind a string of clandestine drug laboratories uncovered in parts of the country this year.
The statement by the Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Mr. Femi Babafemi, recalled that the operatives had earlier this year arrested three Mexican nationals and seven Nigerian collaborators at a forest hideout in Ogun in southwestern Nigeria on May 16.
The statement explained that the NDLEA operatives also arrested another Mexican national alongside four Nigerian collaborators on June 17 at a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory.
It added that they were hidden in a forested part of Tapa village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State in southwestern Nigeria where field tests confirmed large quantities of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals.
He also added that investigations by the agency’s Special Operations Unit (SOU) into the Oyo State arrest led operatives to establish that the 56-year-old Mexican Meth expert, Jose Ochoa arrested at the forest lab had been recruited into Nigeria by a Mexican kingpin, Arturo Loaiza
“Working with international partners, NDLEA investigators obtained a photograph of the Loaiza , which the arrested suspect positively identified as the man, who recruited and moved him into Nigeria.
“Intelligence further showed that Loaiza entered Nigeria on June 10 alongside another Mexican national, Jose Perez,” he said.
“On August 19, our operatives tracked down and arrested Loaiza attempting to flee the country through the Lagos airport.
“During interrogation, he claimed he had been invited to Nigeria by a Nigerian contact, identified only as “Henry,” under the guise of a restaurant business venture.
“Loaiza, however, denied any knowledge of methamphetamine manufacturing or involvement with the Tapa village laboratory,” he said.
The NDLEA chairman warned that Nigeria would never become a safe haven for merchants of death.
“Let me be unequivocal, 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,” he added.
GIK/APA