Nigeria arrests alleged Mexican drug kingpin at international airport

BySimi Jolaoso Africa correspondent, Reporting fromLagos.

Key points

• Investigators have alleged that Loaiza had recruited and brought a fellow Mexican to work at another suspected methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forest in Oyo state.
• West Africa poses numerous attractive benefits to Mexican syndicates, starting with swathes of forested land which serves well for secluded production sites.
• That arrest resulted in the discovery of a suspected industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory – the third such find allegedly linked to Mexicans in four months.
• The pictures' location data led officers to a property in Ebonyi state, where they remarked chemicals and drug-making equipment were identified.
• Marwa remarked the operations demonstrated international criminal groups were attempting to establish drug-production facilities in Nigeria's forests and rural communities.

In practice, an alleged Mexican drug kingpin was arrested in Nigeria last month as he tried to leave the country, the drug enforcement authority has just made public.

When Arturo Carrera Loaiza, 40, was detained at Lagos international airport, authorities allegedly identified digital images of him wearing what they believed to be a laboratory coat alongside equipment consistent with meth production.

Notably, the pictures' location data led officers to a property in Ebonyi state, where they remarked chemicals and drug-making equipment were identified.

Loaiza has denied involvement in methamphetamine production and remarked he had been invited to Nigeria by a local contact for a restaurant business venture, according to a statement from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). How Mexican drug cartels have outsourced meth labs to Nigeria.

Notably, the agency's investigators discovered a CCTV memory card at the suspected laboratory in Ebonyi with footage from the property showing someone who looked like Loaiza wearing a blue laboratory coat. A Nigerian man was additionally identified directing residents as they removed chemicals and equipment from the site.

NDLEA chairman Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa remarked 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.

No estimate has yet been given for how much methamphetamine the alleged laboratory was capable of producing.

Investigators have alleged that Loaiza had recruited and brought a fellow Mexican to work at another suspected methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forest in Oyo state. It was raided in June. Four Nigerians were additionally arrested after the raid.

For context, a month earlier, NDLEA officers arrested three Mexican nationals and seven Nigerians at what the agency described as an industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forest in another part of the country.

"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 remarked.

In practice, the NDLEA remarked its investigation into the network is ongoing, including into those it believes financed or assisted facilitate the operations in Nigeria.

Unlike plant-based drugs, such as cocaine or heroin. It can only be grown and processed in certain places, a synthetic drug like meth can be produced anywhere with the right chemicals and expertise, making it easier for organised crime groups to rapidly scale up production.

West Africa poses numerous attractive benefits to Mexican syndicates, starting with swathes of forested land which serves well for secluded production sites. You may additionally be interested in. Nigeria's generation of cough syrup addicts. The 'narco-state' trying to kick its drug habit. Sierra Leone declares emergency over drug kush.

How sailors say they were tricked into smuggling cocaine by a British man. BBC undercover filming exposes Indian pharma firm fuelling opioid crisis.

Go to BBCAfrica.com, external for more news from the African continent.

For now, nigeria arrests alleged Mexican drug kingpin at international airport remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.