NDLEA destroys industrial meth lab in Oyo forest, arrests Mexican expert, four Nigerians

From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has dismantled an industrial-scale clandestine methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forest in Tapa Village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, arresting a Mexican drug expert and four Nigerian collaborators.

The agency said the facility was raided on June 17 and was operated by a Nigerian-Mexican cartel. The discovery came barely four weeks after operatives destroyed a similar laboratory in a forest in Ijebu East, Ogun State.

NDLEA Chairman, Brig.-Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), represented by the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, disclosed this while briefing journalists at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja yesterday.

Marwa described the laboratory as a sophisticated and highly organised transnational drug operation.

Those arrested include Jose Villa Ochoa, 56, a Mexican methamphetamine expert allegedly brought into Nigeria for his technical expertise in large-scale drug production, and four Nigerians: Maxwell Uche Nevoh, 30; Olatunji Yusuf, 37; Bankole Akeem Owolabi, 45; and Ganiu Monsiu, 43.

According to Marwa, the arrest of a foreign drug specialist underscores both the transnational nature of the threat and the agency’s growing intelligence capability.

A forensic team from the agency’s Directorate of Forensic and Chemical Monitoring inspected the facility on June 18 and recovered a full-scale production line, including Phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), 1,800 litres of phenylacetic acid, 300 litres of a whitish crystalline substance, four drums of liquid undergoing synthesis and large quantities of chemicals used in methamphetamine production.

Equipment recovered included a reactor pot, two distillation units, three mixers and condensers, and two vegetable dehydrators used to accelerate crystal drying.

Field tests confirmed the presence of methamphetamine and phenylacetic acid.

The NDLEA said all exhibits had been evacuated and preserved for prosecution purposes.

Marwa warned drug cartels that Nigeria would not become a safe haven for illicit drug production.

“We will find you in the cities, we will track you into the forests, and we will dismantle your infrastructure of death,” he said.

He commended the NDLEA Oyo State Command and members of the public whose intelligence aided the operation.