An alleged Mexican drug kingpin was arrested in Nigeria last month as he tried to leave the country through Lagos airport, the drug enforcement authority has revealed. What investigators found on him led them to a hidden meth laboratory in Ebonyi - the third such find allegedly linked to Mexicans in four months. When Arturo Carrera Loaiza, 40, was detained at Lagos international airport, officials allegedly found digital images of him wearing what they believed to be a laboratory coat alongside equipment consistent with meth production.
The pictures' location data led officers to a property in Ebonyi state, where chemicals and drug-making equipment were found; a CCTV memory card showed someone who looked like Loaiza in a blue lab coat, and a Nigerian man directing removal of chemicals. NDLEA chairman Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa said further intelligence led officers to an isolated house in a neighbouring community, where they recovered chemicals, dehydrators, condensers, a reaction pot, weighing scales, mixers, drums, gas burners and a sieve containing traces of methamphetamine.
Loaiza denied involvement, saying he was invited to Nigeria for a restaurant business venture. Investigators alleged Loaiza had recruited a fellow Mexican for another suspected meth lab hidden in an Oyo forest raided in June (4 Nigerians arrested); a month earlier, three Mexicans and seven Nigerians were arrested at another industrial-scale forest lab. Marwa: '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.'
Unlike plant-based drugs, synthetic meth can be produced anywhere with the right chemicals and expertise. (Source: BBC.)
