Officers from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a businessman named Paul Mbadugha at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) in Abuja. Paul was on his way to Vietnam and was found with cocaine in his stomach.
The NDLEA said Paul is 54 years old and was stopped at the boarding gate of the airport on Monday, August 12, 2024. He was about to board a Qatar Airways flight to Hanoi, Vietnam, with a stop in Doha.
Paul, under close watch for four days, passed out 88 wraps of cocaine, weighing a total of 1.710 kilograms. Femi Babafemi, a spokesperson for NDLEA, shared this information in a statement on Sunday.
Paul said he lives in Lagos and a friend in Isolo, Lagos, gave him the cocaine to take to Vietnam. He was promised $2,000 for the job.
In another case, NDLEA officers intercepted a shipment at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos. They found 800 grams of synthetic cannabis (called “Loud”) hidden in noodles, headed for Congo.
Later, the sender, Nnamani Sunday Sunny, who sells phones in Alaba International Market, Lagos, was caught.
NDLEA officers also caught a large shipment of “Loud” that came from Canada at the Lagos airport. Desalu Taophic Temitope was arrested upon arrival with six boxes. Security officers found 65.80 kilograms of “Loud” in four of those boxes.
Desalu said he and a missing partner were promised $10,000 to deliver the boxes in Lagos.
In more details shared by Babafemi, NDLEA officers found and seized:
- 892,400 bottles of codeine syrup worth about 6.2 billion Naira at Port Harcourt Ports Complex in Rivers State.
- 21,800 kilograms of cannabis on 20 hectares of farmland destroyed in Ise forest reserve, Ekiti State.
- 200.2 kilograms of cannabis from a bus on the Onitsha-Enugu road, with the driver Okoro Emmanuel arrested.
- 145,400 tramadol pills in Kano, leading to the arrest of Joseph Apeh and Diamond Nnabuike.
- A six-hectare cannabis farm raided in Ogun State, resulting in the arrest of Fidelis Egede, 70, and three others.
- 30,000 ampoules of pentazocine injection taken from a truck on the Kwali-Gwagwalada expressway in Abuja. Three suspects were arrested.
- 28,500 tramadol pills found in a loudspeaker in Niger State. Ifeanyi Chukwueze was arrested.
- 40,000 tramadol pills seized in Kogi State from Abba Yakubu.
- 1,000 ampoules of pentazocine injection in Lokoja, Kogi State. The suspect, Tochukwu Onah, was arrested.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), the head of NDLEA, praised the officers for their hard work and the successful seizures and arrests. He also thanked them for their efforts to educate communities about the dangers of drugs.