Nigeria arrests four Mexicans in raid on meth lab

Drug officials in Nigeria said they had arrested four Nigerians and four Mexicans allegedly producing methamphetamine in the country.

The ‘super methamphetamine laboratory’ was said to be the first to be discovered in the country.

The suspects include four Nigerians believed to be joint owners of the laboratory. The Mexicans were said to be methamphetamine production experts hired as technical partners.

The laboratory was found in the southern city of Asaba, in Delta state.

It was similar to the ones found in Mexico and very toxic, the head of forensic and monitoring, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Magareth Ogundipe said.

“We are yet to locate where these people have dumped their waste. We don’t know where. We are still investigating. Those are issues because the waste will percolate to the underlining water body, it will affect the local flora, it will affect the fauna, it will affect people that will drink from well where those waters may have percolated into their own water reservoirs and so on and so forth,” she said.

The laboratory has a capacity of producing between 3,000 to 4,000 kilograms of methamphetamine per production cycle.

Items recovered at the laboratory included 1.5kg of finished methamphetamine and 750 litres of liquid methamphetamine. Other items found in the laboratory include industrial pressure pots, gas cylinders, gas burners, facial masks and numerous chemicals.