At Lagos International Airport, 40-year-old Mexican national Arturo Carrera Loaysa was detained on suspicion of involvement in a methamphetamine production network in Nigeria. Data from his digital photographs helped investigators identify a suspected clandestine laboratory, BBC reports, according to UNN.
Details
Loaysa was detained last month while attempting to leave Nigeria. According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), photographs found on his devices apparently showed him wearing a laboratory coat next to equipment used to produce methamphetamine.
Geolocation data from the images led law enforcement officers to a house in Ebonyi State. There, they found chemicals, a reaction vessel, condensers, mixers, gas burners and other equipment, as well as traces of methamphetamine on one of the sieves.
Three such laboratories have been discovered in four months
Investigators also obtained surveillance camera footage showing a man resembling Loayza wearing a laboratory coat. At the same time, the Mexican national denies involvement in drug production and claims that he came to Nigeria to participate in the restaurant business.
The NDLEA also links him to another suspected methamphetamine laboratory discovered in June in a forest in Oyo State. According to investigators, Loayza recruited another Mexican national to work at the site.
In total, over the past four months, Nigerian law enforcement officers have discovered three suspected laboratories linked to Mexican nationals. The NDLEA believes that transnational criminal groups are attempting to establish synthetic drug production in remote areas of Nigeria.