NDLEA Arrests 8 over Lagos, Abuja, Enugu Airports Cocaine Busts

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested six men and two women over attempts to import hundreds of cocaine pellets into Nigeria and export thousands of tramadol 255mg tablets among other illicit drugs to Europe via the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, and Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

According to the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, the streaks of arrests and seizures began on Sunday 17th July when a 52-year-old father of three, Okwo Okechukwu, was arrested upon his arrival from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia via an Ethiopian airline flight at the Abuja airport for ingesting 76 pellets of cocaine.

According to the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, the streaks of arrests and seizures began on Sunday 17th July when a 52-year-old father of three, Okwo Okechukwu, was arrested upon his arrival from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia via an Ethiopian airline flight at the Abuja airport for ingesting 76 pellets of cocaine.

Babafemi said during preliminary interrogation, Okechukwu said he was into selling women’s wigs and hair attachment before veering into the drug trade. Okechukwu excreted all the 76 wraps of the drug he swallowed while under observation at the NDLEA’s facility in Abuja.

In the same vein, another father of three, Lawrence Chijioke, 42, was arrested at the Abuja airport same day in an operational synergy between NDLEA and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

Chijioke was arrested during an inward clearance of Ethiopian Airline flight from Addis Ababa with 529 pellets of cocaine weighing 11.70 kilogrammes concealed in his bag.

In his statement to anti-narcotic officers, he claimed he was promised N2 million, which he planned to use to boost his business, upon the successful delivery of the cocaine consignment in Abuja.