NDLEA Dismantles Meth Lab in Oyo Forest, Arrests Mexican Drug Expert and Four Others

(arrests Mexican and four others. Photo credit: Nation News)

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have dismantled an industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory hidden deep in a forest in Tapa Village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, arr£sting five suspects including a Mexican drug expert and recovering substances and equipment worth billions of naira.

NDLEA Chairman Brigadier General Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) announced the development at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, describing the facility as a sophisticated, highly fortified transnational operation rather than a rudimentary setup.

The raid, carried out on June 17, 2026, led to the arr£st of 56-year-old Mexican methamphetamine specialist Jose Villa Ochoa, who was reportedly brought in specifically to provide technical expertise for large-scale drug synthesis, alongside four Nigerian collaborators identified as Maxwell Uche Nevoh, 30; Olatunji Yusuf, 37; Bankole Akeem Owolabi, 45; and Ganiu Monsiu, 43.

A forensic team from the agency’s Directorate of Forensic and Chemical Monitoring moved in the following day to examine the facility, uncovering what Marwa described as a factory-level production line.

Among the items recovered were large drums of phenylacetic acid and Phenyl-2-Propanone the primary precursor for methamphetamine synthesis along with sulphuric acid, caustic soda, tartaric acid, thioglycolic acid and other industrial chemicals.

Processing equipment found on site included a reactor pot, distillation units, fabricated mixers and condensers, and vegetable dehydrator machines used to dry methamphetamine crystals. Field tests confirmed the presence of methamphetamine in samples recovered from the facility.

Marwa noted that the latest discovery comes barely four weeks after a similar laboratory was dismantled in a forest in Ogun State, suggesting a coordinated attempt by cr!minal syndicates to establish a synthetic drug manufacturing corridor across the South-West.

“Let the message go out clearly to all drug cartels, domestic and international, that Nigeria is not, and will never be, a safe haven for your illicit trade.

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

The agency commended its Oyo State operatives for their professionalism and thanked members of the public for providing credible intelligence that aided the operation.