The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Delhi police have busted a methamphetamine manufacturing unit with links to a Mexican drug cartel in the Delhi-NCR region and seized 95kg of synthetic drugs from five arrested persons.

The lab was allegedly set up by a Delhi-based businessman and a Tihar jail warden in Greater Noida. A member of the Mexican drug cartel was also part of the syndicate, an NCB official said.

Sources said the NCB received a tip-off about the illegal laboratory set up for the production of synthetic drugs such as meth for export as well as domestic consumption.

“Members of the Mexican cartel — De Jalisco Nueva Generación — are also involved,” an NCBofficial said.

According to him, a Mumbai-based chemist and a Tihar jail warden are among the five arrested persons. “The NCB is also on the lookout for a Mexican national suspected to be a member of the De Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel,”he said.

The NCB and the Delhi police conducted a search operation at a factory in the Kasna industrial area of Greater Noida on October 25and found around 95kg of methamphetamine in solid and liquid forms.

“Chemicals such as acetone, sodium hydroxide, methylene chloride,premium-grade ethanol, toluene, red phosphorus and ethyl acetate and imported machinery were also found. A probe has revealed the drug network has footprints across several places in Delhi-NCR,” an NCB official saidon Tuesday.

De Jalisco Nueva Generación is one of the five most dangerous transnational criminal organisations in the world and is responsible for trafficking cocaine, meth and fentanyl-laced heroininto the US.

Sources said the arrested businessman and the Tihar jail warden were in the factory at the time of the raid. The duo, a Delhi police official said, were instrumentalin establishing the factory, procuring chemicals required for manufacturing meth and importingthe machines.

The businessman had earlier been arrested by the department of revenue intelligence under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and lodged in Tihar jail where he met the warden.

The chemist was engaged by the duo to manufacture the drug whose quality was tested by a Mexican drug cartel member residing in Delhi, the sources said.

NCB deputy director-general (operations) Gyaneshwar Singh said these four persons were arrested andproduced on October 27 before a special NDPS court, which sent them to three-dayNCB custody.

He said an “important member” of the syndicate and “close associate” of the Delhi-based businessmanwas apprehended in follow-up action from Delhi’sRajouri Garden.

This is the fifth such laboratory busted by the NCB this year. Officials suspect the drug mafia had started setting up such labs in industrial areas so that the transportation of material and machinery and toxic fumes from the chimneys do not alert lawenforcement agencies.