Deep inside a forest in Tapa Village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State, operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) found something that looked more like a pharmaceutical plant than a forest hideout.
On June 17, 2026, they raided the facility and arrested five people, including a Mexican national brought into Nigeria specifically to manufacture methamphetamine on an industrial scale.
NDLEA Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Brigadier General Buba Marwa (retd.), disclosed the details at a press briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, June 25, represented by the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi.
The raid, he said, dealt a significant blow to an international drug syndicate operating inside Nigeria.
The Mexican suspect, identified as Jose Villa Ochoa, 56, was the alleged technical expert — brought in to run the production line.
The four Nigerians arrested alongside him were Maxwell Uche Nevoh, 30; Olatunji Yusuf, 37; Bankole Akeem Owolabi, 45; and Ganiu Monsiu, 43.
What NDLEA Found Inside the Hidden Factory
Forensic and chemical monitoring experts who swept the facility after the arrest described what they found as a factory-level production line, stocked with an array of industrial equipment and controlled precursor chemicals.
Among the materials recovered were large quantities of Phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) — a tightly controlled precursor used specifically in methamphetamine synthesis — alongside massive drums of phenylacetic acid, sulphuric acid, tartaric acid, thioglycolic acid, and ethyl phenylacetate.
Furthermore, investigators found 101 bags of caustic soda and dozens of cartons of aluminium foil used in processing.
The equipment recovered was equally striking: a reactor pot, distillation units, fabricated mixers and condensers, and industrial dehydrators used to dry finished methamphetamine crystals.
Field tests confirmed that crystal samples from the lab tested positive for methamphetamine. All exhibits were documented and preserved for prosecution.
A Deliberate Push to Make South-West a Drug Hub
This was not an isolated find. Barely four weeks earlier, the NDLEA had dismantled another large methamphetamine laboratory hidden inside a forest in neighbouring Ogun State.
The back-to-back discoveries suggest a coordinated effort by drug cartels to establish south-western Nigeria as a production base for synthetic narcotics.
Marwa was direct in his assessment of what this pattern means.
“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 arrest of a foreign methamphetamine specialist on Nigerian soil reflects the increasingly transnational character of the country’s drug production problem.
Nigeria has in recent years become both a transit route and, more recently, a manufacturing location for synthetic drugs — a shift that security experts warn poses serious public health, organised crime, and regional stability risks.
Marwa was grateful to officers of the NDLEA Oyo State Command for what he described as their gallantry and professionalism during the operation.
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