Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have announced the arrest of two businessmen, who have been identified as Ihejirika Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Victory, over alleged drug trafficking.
It was noted that one of the suspects, Ihejirika, has been a frequent traveller to Thailand; he has always claimed to be into the business of importing fish into the country but was arrested on October 15, 2024, while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In a statement released on Sunday by the spokesperson of the agency, Femi Babfemi on Sunday noted that the Ihejirika was taken for a body scan, and the results showed he had ingested illicit drugs, which were later confirmed to be cocaine.
The statement further noted that when the suspect was placed on placed under excretion observation after the arrest, he expelled five large, egg-sized wraps of cocaine weighing 400 grams. The spokesperson noted that the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon the successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand. He claimed that the proceeds would be used to invest in the fish business he has been doing in the past years.
Another suspect, according to the NDLEA, Victory, was arrested during inward clearance of passengers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, after the suspect had arrived from Brazil through Addis Ababa boarding an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
He said a body scan conducted on the 26-year-old businessman revealed that he had ingested drugs, adding that he subsequently excreted a pellet of cocaine weighing 22 grams. It was confirmed that after interrogation, the suspect told the operatives that he had ingested 30 wraps of the illicit drug in Brazil but excreted 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person. According to the statement, the suspect indicated that he was paid ₦2.5 million for trafficking the drug.
In another operation, the NDLEA noted that a Nigerian-Canadian nurse, identified as Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, was arrested on October 4 by NDLEA officers at Lagos airport during the inward clearance of Air France passengers arriving from Toronto, Canada, via Paris.
When the operatives went through his luggage it was confirmed that the suspect was found with a total of 70 parcels of Canadian Loud, weighing 35.70 kg, were recovered from her.
When she was interrogated, she told the operatives that she had visited Nigeria to visit his boyfriend, who instructed her to come with the large consignment of the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis.
The statement further noted that at the seaports, 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 the containers with officials from the Customs Service and other security agencies on Tuesday, October 15.
It noted that the operatives successfully confiscated a total of 7,200,000 pills of Royal 225 mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth ₦3,600,000,000 in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers State, on Tuesday, October 15.
According to him, the operatives in the operation and investigation of the container confiscated a total of 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing 15,600,000 pills of the opioid were also recovered. From two other watch-listed containers that were equally searched at the port in Onne, a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth ₦2,359,000,000 were recovered on Tuesday and Thursday, October 15 and 17.
The confiscated items, according to the NDLEA, were Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and codeine consignment with a total market value of ₦7,095,457,000.
In another exercise carried out in Bauchi State, it was noted that one suspect, identified as Sunday Ogenyi, 33, was arrested along the Bauchi-Jos road with 76,600 pills of tramadol concealed in false compartments of his Toyota Sienna vehicle marked Enugu JRV 341 ZY.
The NDLEA disclosed that its operatives also in Ondo State on Tuesday, October 15, in an operation, arrested three persons who were associated with dealing with illegal drugs in the state. The suspects were identified as Goddey Obizuo, Samuel Aniete, and Kuffrey Aniete who are residents of Afo Village, they were reportedly arrested with 672 kg of cannabis sativa.
|In the South East, it was reported that the operatives attached to the Edo state command had confiscated and destroyed 10,590.36 kg of cannabis spread over 4.236144 hectares of farmland. The operation, according to the statement, led to the arrest of Benson Upuoni, 65, and Sunday Nwaeboyi, 35. The raid was reportedly carried out in the lush forest in Esan, south east of the state.
The agency has also announced the arrest of one suspected meth cook, Agbeiboh Oscar, who was nabbed on the same Tuesday at Abule Osun with 265 grams of methamphetamine and various quantities of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of methamphetamine and other substances.
