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The Mexican marines carefully stacked the plastic drums one by one, dressed head to toe in white hazmat suits with gas masks tightly fastened around their faces to shield themselves from any toxic fumes.
Deep in the sierra of the state of Sinaloa, long the cradle of the country’s drug trade, authorities counted the solid crystal and liquid methamphetamine, precursor chemicals and equipment found at the clandestine lab.
On that Friday, August 17, 2018, security units in the air and on the ground had flanked the town of Alcoyonqui, nested into the surrounding mountains less than an hour east of the bustling state capital, Culiacán. Beneath the main production site, the mega-lab was outfitted with two underground warehouses to store some of the partially processed liquid methamphetamine.