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Nigeria’s anti-drug agency announced Wednesday that it has dismantled the largest clandestine methamphetamine laboratory ever uncovered in the country, seizing 2.4 tons of meth and chemicals and arresting 10 people, including three Mexican nationals brought in as “cooks.”

Getting into it: The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said its Special Operations Unit, acting on months of intelligence, carried out simultaneous raids across Ogun and Lagos states within a 48-hour window starting May 16. The primary target was an industrial-scale meth lab hidden inside the Abidagba forest in Ogun’s Ijebu area, which had reportedly been operating under the guise of an ordinary farm. Police arrested seven people there, including the three Mexicans, while a separate team raided a “luxury fortress” in the upscale Lekki area of Lagos and arrested the alleged Nigerian kingpin, Anochili Innocent (a search of his home turned up the Mexicans’ passports and phones, linking him to their importation). Follow-up operations brought the total in custody to 10, including the kingpin, the three Mexican specialists, and six Nigerian collaborators.

NDLEA chief Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa framed the bust as a major blow against transnational organized crime. “This network did not just traffic drugs; they were actively manufacturing industrial-scale quantities of highly lethal illicit substances right on our soil, threatening the national security and public health of Nigeria.” He said the operation confirmed intelligence about a worrying trend of local cartels importing foreign know-how. “We are fully aware of the shifting tactics of these cartels, including the disturbing trend of hiring South American cartel specialists to set up production factories in our rural communities.”

In total, the seizure came to 2,419.48 kilograms of finished meth and precursor chemicals worth $362.9 million on the international market, along with two vehicles, a haul Marwa said represented “millions of street doses.” He warned that drug lords would find Nigeria to be “hostile territory,” vowing that “no matter how deep into the bush you hide, no matter how secure your gated estate is, the NDLEA will hunt you down.”

This all comes as Mexican drug cartels have increasingly been shifting their methamphetamine production into Africa, exploiting weak borders and easily corruptible law enforcement that the UN says have turned West and Central Africa into a global trafficking and manufacturing hot spot.

Just three weeks earlier, South African authorities busted a similar industrial-scale meth lab near Johannesburg and arrested five Mexican nationals, in at least the fourth such case where Mexicans believed to be working on behalf of a cartel were caught running production on the continent.