Seizes over N7b worth of opioids at Apapa, Onne ports
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested two businessmen, Ihejirika Okechukwu Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory, alongside a Canada-based nurse, Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Ikeja, Lagos, for attempting to import and export cocaine pellets and parcels of “Loud,” a synthetic strain of cannabis.
Ihejirika, who regularly travels to Thailand, claiming to import fish into Nigeria, was apprehended on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
A body scan revealed he had ingested illicit drugs, later identified as cocaine. Under excretion observation, he expelled five large egg-sized wraps of cocaine weighing 400gm.
The 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon delivering the drugs in Thailand, claiming he needed the money to support his fish importation business.
In another incident, NDLEA operatives intercepted 26-year-old businessman Iwuagwu Ikedi Victory, arriving from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight on Thursday, October 17.
A body scan confirmed he had ingested cocaine, and he later expelled a pellet weighing 22gm. He admitted to ingesting 30 wraps of cocaine in Brazil but had excreted 29 in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another individual. He was to be paid N2.5 million for trafficking the drugs.
Similarly, Nigerian-Canadian nurse Usman Grace Khadijat Olami was arrested by NDLEA officers during the inward clearance of Air France passengers from Toronto, Canada, via Paris on October 4.
A search of her luggage uncovered 70 parcels of “Canadian Loud” weighing 35.70kg. She claimed her boyfriend instructed her to bring the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis into Nigeria.
In a separate operation, NDLEA operatives, alongside Customs and other security agencies, intercepted 162,351 bottles of codeine-based syrup from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos on October 15.
Additionally, 7.2 million pills of Royal 225mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol, worth N3.6 billion, were seized from a watch-listed container from India at the Port Harcourt Port Complex in Rivers State on the same day.
The container also contained 780 cartons of chlorpheniramine, comprising 15.6 million pills of opioids. Further seizures from two other containers at Onne Port included 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup valued at N2.36 billion. The total street value of Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and codeine consignments seized at both ports is estimated at N7.1 billion.
