THE NIGERIAN CONNECTION

As with many other industries, Nigeria dominates meth production in West Africa. It’s home to Africa’s biggest population and some of the region’s most established criminal gangs, according to drugs experts.

Those gangs have connections with experienced Latin American “cooks,” such as three Bolivians detained in one lab raid. But Nigerian gangs can now run the trade themselves, and have established global networks to distribute the finished product.

The DEA official said there had been several reported instances in Nigeria this year of 25 to 50 kg of ephedrine being diverted from registered pharmaceutical companies. “This, on top of the smuggled precursors, readily supplies meth production,” the official said.

Giade, Nigeria’s top anti-drug cop, said most of the precursors used in Nigerian meth production came from India. Some of the chemicals are approved for import by Nigeria’s national food and drug regulator, he said, while others are smuggled in illegally, “because we have porous borders.” Giade cited the border to the west with Benin as a major weak point.

In 2014 the Nigerian government told the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB)it needed 9.65 tonnes of ephedrine for legitimate businesses. India alone supplied Nigeria with 9.2 tonnes last year, according to a Reuters analysis of official ephedrine exports listed on Indian trade website www.zauba.com, which collates data from ports and customs authorities. It is not clear how much ephedrine Nigeria imported from other suppliers.

“India is legally doing business, but African nations should be checking if the amounts ordered are in line with what is needed by the different factories using ephedrine,” said UNODC’s Lapaque.

NEW NETWORKS

West African meth production is still far off the levels in Mexico, where officials seized 19 tonnes last year and discovered a string of so-called super labs. But local groups are beginning to make inroads into lucrative markets in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.

Law enforcement officials say Nigerian criminal groups use extensive networks of human mules. Several officials in West Africa said Nigerians have begun to employ Europeans with clean passports, who are likely to raise less suspicion in Asia. In December 2013, a German man and an Austrian woman were arrested in Jakarta after they were caught having flown in from Dakar with meth hidden in their luggage, local media reported.

Police in London and Paris last year arrested eight Europeans who had left West Africa and were headed to Asia, each carrying 2 to 6 kg of meth, one foreign law enforcement official told Reuters.

In an effort to stop the industry becoming entrenched, Payne said the DEA is helping local officials by detecting and dismantling clandestine labs.

“They basically have a three-headed monster now in Africa,” Payne said. “They have the coke problem from South America, the heroin from Afghanistan, and the home-grown meth that is making its way to South Africa and Asia. We’re trying to address it as we can, but that is tough.”

*Reported by David Lewis of Reuters

*Re-issued under a different heading