The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd.), has charged investigators and prosecutors in the agency to intensify efforts to trace, seize and recover the proceeds and instrumentalities of narcotics trafficking.

Marwa said the war against drug cartels could no longer be won through arrests and drug seizures alone, stressing the need to dismantle the financial structures that sustain organised criminal networks.

He spoke yesterday in Abuja while declaring open an Advanced Capacity Building Programme on Financial Investigations, Asset Tracing, Forfeiture, Recovery and Management of the Proceeds and Instrumentalities of Narcotics Trafficking and Related Organised Crime.

The NDLEA boss said drug trafficking was fundamentally an economic enterprise sustained by financiers, facilitators, money launderers and other professional enablers operating behind drug shipments.

“If we arrest the courier but leave the financier untouched, seize the drugs but allow the proceeds to remain with the criminal enterprise, or secure a conviction without recovering the illicit wealth, we have addressed only part of the problem,” he said.

Marwa noted that criminal organisations were increasingly exploiting technology, cryptocurrencies, complex corporate structures and legitimate businesses to conceal the ownership and origins of illicit wealth.

He therefore urged NDLEA investigators and prosecutors to develop the expertise required to analyse complex financial transactions, trace assets across borders, establish beneficial ownership, exploit digital evidence and build strong financial cases capable of supporting forfeiture and recovery.

According to him, having made significant progress in drug seizures and prosecution, the agency’s next priority is to dismantle the economic foundations of the drug trade and make narcotics trafficking a high-risk, low-profit enterprise.

He also called for stronger cooperation among the agency’s intelligence, investigation, prosecution, forensic, asset and financial investigation directorates, saying they must operate as interconnected parts of a single enforcement chain.

Marwa further stressed the importance of inter-agency collaboration, noting that no single institution possessed all the information, expertise and capacity needed to confront sophisticated criminal networks.

He said the drug trafficking ecosystem was increasingly linked to money laundering, corruption, cybercrime, human trafficking and illicit arms trafficking, making sustained cooperation among law enforcement agencies essential.