The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a Mexican drug kingpin allegedly linked to a transnational methamphetamine cartel and dismantled another industrial-scale laboratory in Ebonyi State.
The suspect, identified as Arturo Carrera Loaiza, was arrested on August 19, 2026, while attempting to flee Nigeria through the Lagos airport, the agency disclosed on Tuesday.
The NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), who spoke through the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, at a media briefing in Lagos, said the arrest followed months of painstaking investigations into a wider criminal network behind several clandestine drug laboratories uncovered in the country.
Marwa warned that Nigeria would not become a safe haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their operations to the country’s forests and rural communities.
He said, ‘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.’
The NDLEA chairman said earlier investigations by its Special Operations Unit into the arrest of a Mexican methamphetamine expert, 56-year-old Jose Villa Ochoa, at a forest laboratory in Oyo State, led to the identification of Loaiza as the alleged recruiter of foreign experts into Nigeria.
Ochoa and four Nigerian collaborators were arrested on June 17, 2026, at a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in the forested Tapa village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.
According to him, Ochoa positively identified Loaiza from a photograph obtained by investigators working with international partners.
Intelligence reportedly showed that Loaiza entered Nigeria on June 10 alongside another Mexican national, Jose Ceballos Perez.
He said Loaiza, during interrogation, claimed he had been invited into the country by a Nigerian contact identified only as ‘Henry’ under the guise of a restaurant business venture.
He reportedly denied knowledge of methamphetamine production or involvement in the Oyo laboratory.
However, investigators allegedly recovered photographs showing him wearing a blue laboratory coat and standing amid equipment consistent with methamphetamine production.