- Intercepts over N7bn worth of opioids at Apapa, Onne seaports
Two businessmen, Ihejirika Okechukwu Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory as well as a Canada-based nurse, Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, have been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja Lagos for attempting to import and export cocaine pellets and parcels of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis through the airport.
This was contained in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by the NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi.
According to Babafemi, Ihejirika who frequents Thailand from where he claims to be importing fish into Nigeria was arrested on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He said when the suspect was taken for body scan, the result showed he ingested an illicit drug which proved to be cocaine.
As a result, he said the suspect was placed under excretion observation during which he expelled five big egg size wraps of cocaine weighing 400grams.
In his statement, Babafemi explained that the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand.
He said he needed the money to boost his fish importation business.
In the same vein, Babafemi said that NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Thursday, October 17, intercepted a 26-year-old businessman, Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory, coming from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight.
He said his body scans revealed ingestion of illicit drugs.
Babafemi noted that when the suspect was put under observation, he excreted a pellet of cocaine weighing 22 grams.
He, however, confessed that he ingested 30 wraps of the illicit drug in Brazil but excreted 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person. The NDLEA spokesman explained that the suspect revealed that he was to be paid N2.5 million for trafficking the drug.
Meanwhile, Babafemi also disclosed that a Nigerian Canadian nurse, Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, was arrested on October 4, 2024 by NDLEA officers at the Lagos airport during the inward clearance of Air France passengers from Toronto, Canada via Paris. During a search of her luggage, a total of 70 parcels of Canadian Loud, weighing 35.70kg were recovered from her.
During her interview, she claimed she was in Nigeria to meet her boyfriend who instructed her to come with the large consignment of the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis.
At the seaports, Babafemi said while a total of 162,351 bottles of codeine based syrup were intercepted from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos by NDLEA operatives during a joint examination of two containers with men of the Customs Service and other security agencies on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, not less than 7,200,000 pills of Royal 225mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth N3.6 billion in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers State.
In the same container, Babafemi said 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing 15,600,000 pills of the opioid, were also recovered.
From two other watch-listed containers equally searched at the port in Onne, he said a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth N2.359 billion were recovered from them on Tuesday 15 and Thursday October 17, 2024.
This brings the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol and Codeine consignments at the two seaports to N7, 095,457,000.
In Bauchi State, a suspect Sunday Jonathan Ogenyi, 33, was arrested along Bauchi-Jos road with 76,600 pills of tramadol concealed in false compartments of his Toyota Sienna vehicle marked Enugu JRV 341 ZY, while NDLEA operatives in Ondo state on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 arrested three suspects, Goddey Obizuo; Samuel Aniete; and Kuffrey Aniete at Afo village where 672kg cannabis sativa was seized from them.
Babafemi added that a raid at Illushi forest in Esan South East LGA, Edo State led to the destruction of 10,590.36kg cannabis spread on 4.236144 hectares of farmland.
He named the suspects arrested during the operation to include Benson Upuoni, 65; and Sunday Nwaeboyi, 35.
In Lagos, he said NDLEA operatives on Tuesday, October 15, 2024 arrested Andrew Joseph Anoriode with 3kg methamphetamine and 1.90kg cannabis along Lagos – Ibadan expressway while 241kg of same substance was recovered at Gbaji, Badagry area of the state.
He said a suspected meth cook, Agbeiboh Oscar, was nabbed the same Tuesday at Abule Osun with 265grams of methamphetamine and different quantities of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and others.
