South Africa police find $37m meth lab, arrest five

South African police said they found a crystal meth laboratory on a farm near Musina, close to the border with Zimbabwe, and arrested five foreign nationals.

Police said security forces raided the site late Thursday and seized drugs and equipment worth about 600 million rand, or $37 million. Those arrested were two Mexican nationals, two Zimbabweans and a Malawian.

The laboratory was hidden on a farm near the northern border town in Limpopo Province. Police described it as an alleged sophisticated, industrial-scale operation.

Limpopo's top police officer, Lieutenant-General Jan Scheepers, told SABC he expected more arrests and believed the operation was linked to organised crime syndicates. He said police believed the drugs made at the site were being sent within South Africa and to neighbouring countries.

Asked about any link to Latin American cartels, a police spokesman told AFP: “Nationality alone does not establish a cartel link.”

The raid follows other South African drug lab busts involving Mexican nationals. Police uncovered a methamphetamine laboratory in May on a remote farm northwest of Johannesburg and arrested 11 suspects, including four Mexicans. In September, police said they seized methamphetamine worth 350 million rand at another rural lab southeast of Johannesburg and arrested five Mexican nationals.

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime said in a July 2025 report that drug labs in South Africa and Mozambique reflected the expansion of Latin American cartels into Africa and cooperation with local criminal groups. The Geneva-based organisation says South Africa is a major consumer of meth and that the market is growing in neighbouring countries and elsewhere in the region.