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Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a Mexican national and four Nigerians during a raid on a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in Oyo State.
NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.) disclosed details of the operation on Wednesday during a press briefing in Abuja.
Represented by the agency’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, Marwa said operatives raided the laboratory, located in a forest in Tapa Village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, on June 17.
“Tactical operatives of the NDLEA stormed the highly fortified, industrial-scale clandestine methamphetamine laboratory operating deep within the forest of Tapa Village. This is not a rudimentary set-up; it was a sophisticated, highly organised transnational syndicate,” he said.
Marwa identified the suspects as 56-year-old Mexican methamphetamine expert, Jose Villa Ochoa, and four Nigerians: Maxwell Nevoh, Olatunji Yusuf, Bankole Owolabi, and Ganiu Monsiu.
He said forensic experts deployed to the site after the raid uncovered what he described as “a massive factory-level production line of poison.”
According to him, operatives recovered several drums containing phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), phenylacetic acid, crystalline substances suspected to be methamphetamine, caustic soda, sulphuric acid and other precursor chemicals.
Marwa noted that the agency had dismantled another large methamphetamine laboratory in Ogun State about four weeks earlier.
“The proximity of this discovery to the Ogun State lab, uncovered about four weeks ago, reveals a desperate attempt by drug barons to establish a synthetic drug manufacturing hub in the South-West axis.
“They thought hiding in dense forests would shield them from the long arm of the law. They were indeed very wrong,” he said.
The NDLEA chairman warned drug traffickers and manufacturers against using Nigeria as a base for illicit operations.
“Let the message go out clearly to all drug cartels, both domestic and international, that Nigeria is not and will never be a safe haven for your illicit trade,” Marwa said.
“We will find you in the cities, we will track you into the forests, and we will dismantle your infrastructure of death.”
