{"id":35031,"date":"2026-05-21T12:50:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=35031"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:50:30","slug":"nigeria-busts-meth-cartel-in-largest-seizure-arrests-kingpin","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/nigeria-busts-meth-cartel-in-largest-seizure-arrests-kingpin\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria busts meth cartel in largest seizure, arrests kingpin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Nigeria’s anti-drug agency said it had dismantled a methamphetamine syndicate in the largest seizure of \u200bits kind in the country, seizing drugs and chemicals \u200cworth about $363 million and arresting 10 suspects, including three Mexicans.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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%The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency said late on Wednesday that coordinated raids on \u200ba farm in Ogun state and linked properties \u200bin Lagos state, southwest Nigeria, uncovered an industrial-scale clandestine \u2060laboratory and yielded 2.4 tons of methamphetamine and chemical materials.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) \u200bChief Mohamed Buba Marwa said the operation, carried out over \u200b48 hours after months of intelligence work, exposed a network importing foreign “technical expertise” to produce drugs locally.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seven suspects, including three Mexicans described as \u200bmeth “cooks”, were arrested at the farm used as a lab \u200bin Ogun state’s Abidagba forest, while the alleged mastermind, Anochili Innocent, a \u200cNigerian, \u2060was detained at his Lagos residence.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Follow-up operations brought total arrests to 10, the agency said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The agency said the scale of the haul, equivalent to millions of street doses, highlighted \u200ba shift by \u200bdrug cartels \u2060towards setting up production bases in Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The crackdown underscores Nigeria’s growing role as both a \u200btransit and manufacturing hub in the global illegal \u200bdrugs \u2060trade.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Illegal trade has been growing in Nigeria and West Africa, where porous borders allow cartels to expand logistics networks and links \u2060to \u200bLatin American trafficking groups.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Marwa said the agency \u200bwill step up its crackdown on local and transnational networks across the \u200bcountry.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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–Reuters–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":35034,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-35031","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Nigeria's anti-drug agency dismantled meth syndicate","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35035,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35031\/revisions\/35035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=35031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}