This report from ADF Magazine Online, published on 21 October 2025.
Pictured here are SAPS forensics with tik seized during the recent raid on a ‘Mexican drug factory’ near Volksrus, Mpumulanga.
There have been three busts of large crystal meths factories in South Africa in the past year, highlighting the ramped-up scale of illegal drug production taking place within our borders.
Mexican cartels are now established in South Africa and are producing drugs for export as well as fuelling the rise of substance abuse and crime. The result is that South Africa is now one of the world’s biggest crystal meth (also known as tik) consumer markets, highlighting a drug crisis that appears to be spiralling beyond control.
This is the view of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC) which reports that Mexican drug cartels are now “franchising” industrial-scale meth production within the country.
GITOC’s southern African representative, Julian Rademeyer, recently appeared on 702 Talk Radio and outlined the dangers of international syndicates setting up shop in SA.
“The Mexican nationals are moving closer to their users,” says Rademeyer.
“South Africa has one of the largest — if not the largest — consumer markets for crystal meth, for tik, in the world. They’ve begun setting up these industrial-scale facilities on remote farms, in rural communities. This is essentially the modus operandi that they followed in the past in Nigeria, then in Kenya and now today.”
The cartels’ presence raises fears of escalating violence as disputes over territory are fuelling gang fighting in the Gauteng and Western Cape provinces, Rademeyer added.
Meth use in South Africa has proliferated since the mid-1990s, driven initially by suppliers of precursor chemicals to local gangs by Chinese networks.
However, the market has since shifted dramatically.
“Over the last decade, we’ve seen a significant shake-up of the tik and meth market in South Africa,” Rademeyer said. “While some meth is still produced locally, there are essentially two major strains entering the country.”
One strain is commonly known by users as Pakistani meth, which originates in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The second is known as Mexican meth, which has been manufactured in industrial-scale laboratories that Mexican cartels established in Nigeria, Namibia and other areas.
According to Rademeyer, the Mexican nationals who have been arrested are probably scientists sent by cartels, likely the Sinaloa cartel, which has established itself in more than 50 countries, and the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
He expects the local meth market to expand and that the cartels will seek partnerships with local criminal enterprises.
“If you look at the Nigerian model, they teamed up with Nigerian groups, some of which are believed to be involved with the Mexican cartels in South Africa,” Rademeyer said. He added that the cartels will also likely seek local distributors, look to train locals in meth production, recruit farmers and use people with access to places to discreetly manufacture the drug.
South Africa’s drug problem is not limited to meth.
Drug tests conducted by clinics in South Africa in December 2024 detected fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, in younger people in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
The drug, which produces intense, short-term euphoria, is about 100 times more potent than morphine and 30 times stronger than heroin. It is commonly mixed with cocaine, heroin and meth. It has also been found in the country’s wastewater.
The Journal of Illicit Economies and Development reported that 400,000 South Africans use heroin daily at a cost of about $1.8 million. The combined value of the country’s cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine market was $3.5 billion in 2020, the journal reported last year.
Analysts say addiction to drugs and alcohol is contributing to rising youth unemployment in South Africa. This fuels vandalism, violence, physical health and psychological issues. Imraan Muscat, a social worker at Mediclinic Crescent in the Western Cape province, said many young people turn to drugs not just to get high but also help handle stress, trauma and difficult emotions.
“Over time, this learned behaviour rewires the brain, hijacking core survival systems — those linked to food, shelter and procreation,” Muscat said in a report by the Modern Ghana news website. “Ultimately, the relationship with the substance becomes more important than anything else. This shift occurs on both neurological and behavioural levels. In most cases, it also happens very insidiously.”
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