How the Sinaloa cartel turned a South African farm into a $1 billion meth lab

This screen grab taken from an AFP Video on September 1, 2026 shows the court appearance of five Mexican nationals (standing 4th L - R) accused with others of being involved in the set up an industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory on a game farm in Swartruggens in South Africa's North West province.

They told immigration officers in Johannesburg they'd come to see South Africa's 'Big Five' – the elephants, rhinos, lions, leopards and buffaloes that draw millions of tourists a year. Police believe the real reason the Mexican visitors were here was very different.

The Mexican "tourists", police believe, were really chemists sent by the Mexican Sinaloa crime cartel to set up an industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratory on a game farm near the country town of Swartruggens, one of at least seven discovered across southern Africa in the last two years, AFP has learned.

Investigators say the crystal meth lab is one of a network established by the Sinaloa cartel to supply Australia and New Zealand, the most lucrative meth markets on the planet, where prices are 65 to 100 times higher than in the United States.

The Swartruggens lab was capable of producing five tonnes of the highly addictive drug a month -- worth around $1 billion wholesale in Australia and much more on the streets -- when it was busted in May, they added.

Brigadier Devon Naicker, head of the South African Narcotics Enforcement Bureau (SANEB), told AFP that "in one specific case in Australia... we're looking at whether the methamphetamine came from the Swartruggens laboratory because it went through the port of Durban, and the way it was packaged."

He said the investigation is still going on, "which is why I can't disclose what methods we used to determine" that haul came from the farm two and a half hours northwest of Johannesburg.

South Africa is the "perfect place" to produce methamphetamine, a security source told AFP.

It has huge expanses to hide the labs, global sea and air connections and "corruption, which plays a big role", he said.

Nearly a third of the country's trade is with China and India, where the crucial and highly restricted chemicals used to make meth are sourced.

The Australian police confirmed that it had "identified increased targeting of Australia's illicit drug market by Mexican cartels".

But "due to operational sensitivities, we won't be commenting on Mexican cartels operating in South Africa," it added.

However, a seizure in January showed the drug is not just being smuggled in by sea, with a 32-year-old woman arrested at Sydney airport on a flight from South Africa with 39 kilogrammes (86 pounds) of powdered meth in her bags.

The Australia market is huge, with "methamphetamine the most consumed illicit drug" there after cannabis, according to a 2024 report compiled with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).