The warning followed the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’s (NDLEA) dismantling of four methamphetamine laboratories in Nigeria this year, which US officials said highlighted the importance of intelligence sharing and international cooperation in tackling the growing threat posed by synthetic drugs.
Michael Gonzales, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs for Africa and the Middle East, gave the warning on Tuesday during a visit to the NDLEA headquarters in Abuja.
Gonzales commended the agency for its operational successes, particularly the discovery and dismantling of the methamphetamine laboratories, describing the operations as evidence of effective intelligence gathering, inter-agency cooperation, coordinated action, investigations and prosecution.
He said he chose Nigeria as his first destination after assuming office four months ago because of the country’s strategic importance on the continent and the NDLEA’s record in combating illicit drug trafficking.
“I became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement just four months ago, covering all countries of Africa and the Middle East. And when I was thinking where it makes the most sense to visit first, Nigeria was a clear answer,” he said.
Gonzales described Nigeria as a continental leader and economic powerhouse, while commending the NDLEA’s leadership and its achievements in collaboration with other government agencies.
He said the visit was also intended to provide an opportunity to assess the agency’s operations firsthand, citing the longstanding partnership between the US Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) and the NDLEA.
“Because as a leader, as an economic powerhouse on the continent, but also particularly NDLEA for the leadership and the impressive wins that you and your team and your interagency counterparts have delivered time and again.
“In addition to the very robust partnership between INL and NDLEA, I wanted to see firsthand where the magic happens, as we say in the United States,” he said.
The US official identified the four methamphetamine laboratory busts recorded by the NDLEA this year as a demonstration of the agency’s ability to deploy intelligence-led investigations, coordinate operations across agencies and national boundaries, and pursue cases through to prosecution.
“The four meth lab busts just this year alone are a testament to the deployment of some of the best practices in our tradecraft, the intelligence-based knowledge collection, the coordination across national lines and agency lines, the operational excellence that goes into the actual bust, and then the interrogations, the investigations and prosecutions.
“They’re all so critical because ultimately counter-narcotics work, the work that each of us does day in and day out, truly delivers for the people,” he said.
Gonzales said the importance of counter-narcotics operations extended beyond the countries where illicit drugs were produced or intercepted, noting that the international nature of the trade meant that trafficking networks could affect communities across different regions.
He said narcotics trafficking remained a foreign policy concern for the United States because of its impact on families and communities, adding that efforts by the INL and the NDLEA served the interests of both countries.
“When I am talking to American audiences in the United States, I tell them there’s virtually no other issue of foreign policy that so tangibly affects the lives of every community, virtually every family across our country, than narcotics.
“And the reality of the narcotics trade is international. It knows no boundaries, very few constraints. And so, the work that INL does in the United States and globally and the work that NDLEA does fundamentally delivers for the Nigerian people, for the American people,” Gonzales said.
He said the United States had more than four decades of experience supporting counter-narcotics operations globally, including through the provision of training and equipment.
According to him, changes in trafficking patterns have made international cooperation increasingly important, particularly as criminal organisations adapt their operations in response to enforcement pressure.
Gonzales likened the effect of intensified US pressure on cartels in the Western Hemisphere to “squeezing a balloon”, explaining that traffickers were seeking alternative routes through Africa to reach markets in Europe and beyond.
He also highlighted the growing shift from plant-based narcotics to synthetic drugs, which he described as more difficult to detect and potentially deadlier.
He said counter-narcotics efforts must therefore address criminal organisations as interconnected networks, including their financial flows, rather than focus solely on individual drug seizures.
In his response, Mohamed Marwa, Chairman of the NDLEA, said the agency’s recent operations had exposed what he described as a deliberate attempt by Mexican drug cartels to establish Nigeria as a manufacturing base for methamphetamine.
Marwa said the discovery of the laboratories demonstrated the growing convergence of drug trafficking, illicit arms dealing and terrorist financing, warning that the activities of criminal networks could not be treated as separate security challenges.
“Crime has no borders, and neither does the threat. The drugs we seize, the arms we intercept and the terrorist financing we trace are not separate problems.
“When we seize narcotics and illicit weapons in the same operations and along the same routes, we are looking at the convergence of crime. Drug money buys guns, guns sustain armed groups, and armed groups sustain terrorism,” he said.
He added that the cross-border nature of terrorism and organised crime required coordinated responses, particularly in West Africa and the Sahel region.
“Terrorism has no borders. What festers in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin does not stay there, and what is trafficked through West Africa does not stop at our coastline,” the NDLEA chairman said.
Marwa detailed the agency’s operations against the laboratories, beginning with what he described as the largest clandestine methamphetamine laboratory ever discovered in Nigeria.
“The Mexican cartel threat is real, and we are confronting it,” he said.
According to him, NDLEA operatives recently dismantled the laboratory in a forest in Ijebu East, Ogun State, where three Mexican methamphetamine experts and their Nigerian collaborators were arrested.
He said illicit substances worth more than $360 million were recovered during the operation.
Marwa said the agency subsequently raided another industrial-scale laboratory in Tapa Village, neighbouring Oyo State, barely four weeks after the Ogun operation.
During the raid, a Mexican methamphetamine expert allegedly brought in to oversee large-scale production was arrested alongside four Nigerian collaborators, he said.
The NDLEA Chairman added that the agency had also dismantled similar facilities in Enugu and Ebonyi states in south-east Nigeria, which he said were linked to Mexican drug cartels.
He said the discoveries were not isolated incidents but indicated an attempt by the cartels to establish Nigeria as a production centre for synthetic drugs.
Marwa said the operations had implications for the United States and other international markets, arguing that the cartels were seeking to use West Africa as a corridor for transporting methamphetamine in industrial quantities to Europe, Asia and American cities.
“Let me be plain about why this matters to Washington. These cartels are not setting up in our forests to supply Nigerian consumers alone.
“They want a West African corridor to ship industrial quantities of methamphetamine to Europe, to Asia, and to American cities.
“Especially taking into consideration the President Trump hammer that is smashing cartel traffic en route to America. These cartels are now seeking alternative routes to get to the same America,” he said.
He said the dismantling of each laboratory disrupted a potential supply chain to international drug markets, including the United States.
“Every meth-producing laboratory that we shut down is a supply line that never reaches an American street, and every cartel operative we arrest is one fewer in the pipeline.
“Our forensic chemists, our investigators and our tactical teams are, in effect, forward defence for communities in the United States,” Marwa said.
The NDLEA chairman also acknowledged the contribution of the US partnership to the agency’s operational capacity, saying the support had strengthened its capabilities in forensic and chemical analysis, professional training, investigations, financial-crime detection and equipment maintenance.
He said the collaboration had contributed to the agency’s operational results over the past five years, during which it arrested 96,157 drug offenders, including 250 drug barons, and seized more than 15.8 million kilogrammes of assorted illicit drugs.
Marwa added that 16,691 drug traffickers, including major operators in the illicit drug trade, had been convicted within the same period.
He, however, warned that a withdrawal of US assistance could create gaps that criminal and terrorist networks might exploit, urging Washington to sustain or increase its support for the agency.
“This great partnership has fueled our offensives that yielded the arrest of 96,157 drug offenders including 250 drug barons, the seizure of over 15.8 million kilograms of assorted illicit drugs and conviction of 16,691 drug traffickers including the kingpins, in the last five years,” he said.
Marwa appealed to Gonzales to convey to the US government the need to maintain its assistance to the NDLEA, saying the agency required continued support to sustain its operations against increasingly sophisticated transnational criminal networks.
He urged the United States to retain its existing level of assistance, if not increase it, arguing that drug traffickers, arms dealers and terrorists continued to cooperate across national boundaries.
“Traffickers, arms dealers and terrorists cooperate across borders every day, and governments confronting them must do the same,” Marwa said.
By Ojochenemi Onje, Business Day
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