Nigeria arrests alleged Mexican drug kingpin at Lagos airport
Nigeria's drug enforcement agency has arrested a 40-year-old Mexican man suspected of running a methamphetamine lab, the third such facility uncovered in four months.
Nigeria's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has revealed that a 40-year-old Mexican national, Arturo Carrera Loaiza, was arrested last month at Lagos international airport as he attempted to leave the country. He is suspected of involvement in methamphetamine production.
Following his detention, officials say they found digital images on his devices showing a man wearing what appeared to be a laboratory coat alongside equipment consistent with drug manufacturing. Location data from the photos led investigators to a property in Ebonyi state, where chemicals and drug-making equipment were reportedly discovered.
Loaiza has denied involvement in methamphetamine production, claiming he was invited to Nigeria by a local contact for a restaurant business venture. However, investigators recovered CCTV footage from the property showing a person resembling Loaiza in a blue lab coat, along with a Nigerian man directing the removal of chemicals and equipment from the site.
Further discoveries
NDLEA chairman Gen Mohamed Buba Marwa said further intelligence led officers to an isolated house in a nearby community, where dehydrators, condensers, a reaction pot, scales, mixers, drums, gas burners and a sieve with methamphetamine traces were recovered.
According to the NDLEA, Loaiza allegedly recruited a fellow Mexican national to work at another suspected laboratory hidden in a forest in Oyo state, raided in June, when four Nigerians were also arrested. A month earlier, three Mexican nationals and seven Nigerians were arrested in connection with a similar industrial-scale laboratory in another part of the country.
Marwa said the cases show international criminal networks are attempting to establish drug production facilities in Nigeria's forests and rural areas, warning that the country would not become a haven for transnational cartels relocating their operations. The agency said its investigation into the network, including those who financed or facilitated the activities, is continuing.
