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Malawi arrests 6 suspected drug traffickers tied to Mexico cartel
7:35 CAT | 07 May 2025
File photo: Malawi24
Police in Malawi said Tuesday they had arrested six suspected drug traffickers with links to a Mexican cartel in a joint operation with the United States.
The bust at the weekend at Kamuzu International Airport in the capital Lilongwe nabbed six Mexican nationals, police spokesman Peter Kalaya said.
The men, aged between 27 and 44, had been under US surveillance and were in transit to Mozambique, Kalaya told AFP.
“One of them was found with some packets of drugs which have been sent to a lab for testing,” he said.
A seventh suspect, a Nigerian national who was waiting for the Mexicans at the airport, was arrested for obstructing the police during the raid.
The 54-year-old “started banging tables so he was arrested and charged,” Kalaya said.
“The US had provided us with information through Interpol that the Mexicans are suspected to be part of a syndicate which is involved in the production and distribution of drugs,” he added.
It was not immediately clear with which Mexican cartel the six were affiliated.
“The USA authorities have information that these people are in the process of establishing drug labs, where they will be producing and distributing drugs across Africa,” Kalaya told AFP.
Cannabis remains Africa’s most trafficked and used drug, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, but the continent is increasingly a key transit hub for cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
Between 2019 and 2024, at least 126 tons of cocaine were seized in or en route to west Africa, the UN drugs agency said in a report last year.
Local drug consumption has also increased in recent years, it said.
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