Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested two businessmen, identified as Ihejirika Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Victory, over alleged drug trafficking.

Ihejirika, who frequently travels to Thailand claiming to import fish into Nigeria, was arrested on October 15, 2024, while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

A statement by the agency’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday stated that when Ihejirika was taken for a body scan, the results showed he had ingested illicit drugs, which were later confirmed to be cocaine.

Babafemi added, “As a result, he was placed under excretion observation, during which he expelled five large, egg-sized wraps of cocaine weighing 400 grams. In his statement, the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon the successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand. He said he needed the money to boost his fish importation business.”

Babafemi noted that Victory was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, after arriving from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on 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.

Babafemi stated, “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 suspect revealed that he was to be paid ₦2.5 million for trafficking the drug.”

Babafemi also said 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.

During a search of her luggage, Babafemi said a total of 70 parcels of Canadian Loud, weighing 35.70 kg, 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, 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.

Additionally, not less than 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.”

Babafemi also said, “In the same container, 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.

“This brings the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and codeine consignments at the two seaports to ₦7,095,457,000.”

In Bauchi State, he said a 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.

“NDLEA operatives in Ondo State on Tuesday, October 15, arrested three suspects: Goddey Obizuo, Samuel Aniete, and Kuffrey Aniete at Afo village, where 672 kg of cannabis sativa was seized from them.

“A raid at Illushi forest in Esan South East LGA, Edo State, led to the destruction of 10,590.36 kg of cannabis spread over 4.236144 hectares of farmland. Suspects arrested during the operation include Benson Upuoni, 65, and Sunday Nwaeboyi, 35.

“In Lagos, NDLEA operatives on Tuesday, October 15, arrested Andrew Joseph Anoriode with 3 kg of methamphetamine and 1.90 kg of cannabis along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, while 241 kg of the same substance was recovered in the Gbaji, Badagry area of the state.

“A suspected meth cook, Agbeiboh Oscar, 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,” the statement added.

PUNCH