International collaboration and intelligence sharing are helping the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) track and dismantle increasingly sophisticated crystal methamphetamine operations in Nigeria, the agency’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, has said.

Femi Babafemi said the NDLEA had expanded its intelligence network globally, enabling it to monitor the movements of suspected drug traffickers and work with international partners to track suspects who flee Nigeria.

He made the remarks during a discussion on the Panel54 podcast on the growing production, trafficking and consumption of methamphetamine, commonly known as crystal meth, in West Africa.

According to him, the agency’s collaboration with international partners had strengthened its ability to pursue drug traffickers beyond Nigeria’s borders.

“The agency also has broadened its network across the world globally to a point where it has access to a lot of intelligence to be able to track and monitor the movements of these people wherever,” Babafemi said.

He added: “Now you see the agency even working with global partners, international partners to track these people down wherever. For those that felt they could run away from Nigeria, we have also shown to them that we have the capability to work with our international partners and ensure that even right where they think they are hiding in other jurisdictions, we can track them down and get them there.”

Babafemi also highlighted the changing nature and scale of clandestine methamphetamine production in Nigeria, saying the discovery of laboratories in locations previously considered unlikely showed the extent to which the drug problem had penetrated communities.

He said it was once considered unusual for drug enforcement authorities to discover methamphetamine laboratories in suburban neighbourhoods, but the NDLEA had recently uncovered one in Victoria Garden City (VGC), Lekki, Lagos, a highbrow residential area.

“Nigeria first discovered its confirmed clandestine meth laboratory in 2011, I believe. And then 18 other laboratories were dismantled in 2019. But production continued and we are back to industrial scale facilities in 2026,” he said.

The development comes amid growing concerns over the emergence of West Africa as a production and trafficking hub for methamphetamine, with recent seizures in Nigeria also pointing to the involvement of Mexican drug ‘cooks’ allegedly brought into the region by Mexican cartels.

The trend has raised concerns among governments, law enforcement agencies and security experts over the capacity of criminal networks to exploit weak institutional structures and established smuggling routes in the region.

In the Panel54 podcast discussion, Ghanaian security analyst Fidel Owusu said the scale of drug trafficking could be considerably larger than the quantities intercepted by security agencies.

“Whenever you see an intercept of a kilo of a certain drug, about four kilos have gone through the system,” Owusu said.

He argued that the situation required greater intelligence cooperation among African countries, particularly neighbouring states, to improve the interception of drugs and the identification of trafficking networks.

Owusu also said international naval cooperation could help disrupt maritime routes used to transport drugs from Latin America to the West African coast.

He suggested that West African countries could benefit from cooperation with international partners capable of deploying naval resources to strengthen surveillance and disrupt maritime trafficking routes.

The analyst said such cooperation would also serve the interests of international partners because drug trafficking and instability in West Africa could have wider implications for Europe, particularly through narcotics trafficking and irregular migration.

The growing crystal meth trade, according to an analysis by Getulio Moreira, a researcher for Panel54, reflects a broader expansion of organised criminal activity across West Africa.

Moreira, in the analysis titled “West Africa – A new frontier for crystal meth production,” said the region’s forests and extensive coastline had become increasingly important to the production and movement of methamphetamine.

He said the involvement of Mexican drug networks in the production of methamphetamine in West Africa underscored the region’s growing relevance to global drug-trafficking operations.

Moreira also raised concerns about the vulnerability of institutions in some West African countries to corruption and the potential exploitation of existing smuggling networks by organised criminal groups.

He warned that the region’s large and growing youth population could provide an extensive market for an addictive drug such as crystal meth, with possible public health and security consequences.

The researcher further examined the potential links between drug-trafficking networks and existing terrorist and insurgent smuggling structures in the Sahel, noting that criminal and extremist groups could potentially benefit financially from cooperation.

He cited the movement of cigarettes through the Sahel by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the alleged use of extortion, racketeering and smuggled goods by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) as examples of the region’s established illicit economies.

Moreira argued that intelligence sharing among African countries and stronger cooperation with international partners would be important in addressing the threat.

He also pointed to the reported role of international intelligence cooperation in counterterrorism operations as an indication of what could be achieved through effective information sharing.

The discussion comes as drug enforcement agencies across the region face the challenge of dealing with trafficking networks that operate across national borders and can shift production and distribution routes when enforcement pressure increases.

For Nigeria, the NDLEA’s growing cooperation with international partners means investigations can extend beyond suspects and operations located within the country, while intelligence obtained from foreign partners can support efforts to identify trafficking routes and networks.

Babafemi’s comments also indicate that the agency is increasingly relying on international cooperation as part of its strategy to pursue drug traffickers who attempt to operate from outside Nigeria.

Moreira concluded in his analysis that the spread of crystal meth in Africa required coordinated action, arguing that cooperation between African states and international partners could strengthen efforts to disrupt the financial and logistical networks supporting the trade.