The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has dismantled yet another industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory and arrested a Mexican drug kingpin who was attempting to flee the country through the Lagos airport. Briefing the media on the latest development in Lagos on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), said the breakthrough follows months of painstaking investigation into a wider criminal network behind a string of clandestine drug laboratories uncovered in parts of the country this year. Marwa who was represented by the Agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, recalled that operatives had earlier this year arrested three Mexican nationals and seven Nigerian collaborators at a forest hideout in Ogun State on Saturday, 16th May 2026, and, on 17th June, arrested another Mexican national alongside four Nigerian collaborators at a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory hidden in a forested part of Tapa village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, where field tests confirmed large quantities of methamphetamine and precursor chemicals. Investigations by the Agency’s Special Operations Unit (SOU) into the Oyo State arrest led operatives to establish that the 56-year-old Mexican Methamphetamine expert, Jose Villa Ochoa, arrested at the forest lab had been recruited into Nigeria by a Mexican kingpin Arturo Carrera Loaiza. Working with international partners, NDLEA investigators obtained a photograph of Loaiza, which the arrested suspect positively identified as the man who recruited and moved him into Nigeria. Intelligence further showed that Loaiza entered Nigeria on 10th June 2026, alongside another Mexican national, Jose Ceballos Perez.