Man excretes 88 wraps of cocaine, NDLEA intercepts drugs in noodles

• 70-year-old grandpa, others nabbed in Ekiti, Ogun forest raids

A Vietnam-bound businessman, Paul Okwuy Mbadugha, has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, after he tested positive for ingestion of cocaine.

The agency’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said in a statement yesterday that the 54-year-old suspect was intercepted at the airport’s boarding gate on Monday, August 12, during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight QR 1432 to Hanoi, Vietnam via Doha.

According to him, Mbadugha excreted 88 wraps of the illicit drug with a gross weight of 1.710kg after four days under observation.

In his statement, he claimed he was a Lagos-based businessman and was given the cocaine pellets to swallow by a friend in the Isolo area of the state for onward delivery in Vietnam for a fee of $2,000.

In the same vein, NDLEA officers at the export shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, intercepted a shipment of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis weighing 800gm concealed in noodles and bound for Congo.

A follow-up operation at the Alaba International Market in the Ojo area of Lagos led to the arrest of the consignment’s sender, Nnamani Sunday Sunny, who deals in GSM handsets.

Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport have recovered a large consignment of Loud imported from Canada.

A suspect, Desalu Temitope, who arrived on board an Air France flight with six boxes, was arrested by anti-narcotic officers during a joint examination by security agencies at the arrival hall.

A total of 65.80kg of the psychoactive substance was recovered from four of the six suitcases. In his statement, Temitope said he and an accomplice currently at large were promised $10,000 upon successful delivery of the shipment in Lagos.

About 892,400 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth N6.2 billion in street value were recovered from five containers by NDLEA operatives at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers State, during a joint examination of the containers with men of the Nigeria Customs and other port stakeholders on Wednesday and Thursday, August 14 and 15, 2024.

The bottles of the opioid were packed in 5,337 cartons with a gross weight of 133,860kg and shipped in five containers from India.

In Ekiti State, NDLEA operatives supported by men of the Nigerian Army and other security agencies, as well as community youths, on Wednesday, August 14, raided the Ise forest reserve, Saalaja camp, Ise-Ekiti, where 21,800kg of Cannabis sativa on 20 hectares of farmland were destroyed.

The following day, Thursday, August 15, NDLEA officers on patrol along Onitsha-Enugu Road in Enugu intercepted a Sienna bus marked SKA-24 AG from which 200.2kg of cannabis was recovered and the driver, Okoro Emmanuel, 41, arrested.

The duo of Joseph Apeh, 45, and Diamond Nnabuike, 21, were arrested with 145,400 pills of tramadol on Monday, August 12, at the Gadar Tamburawa area of Kano. NDLEA operatives in Ogun state on Tuesday, August 13, arrested 70-year-old Fidelis Egede and three others: Samuel Sylvanus, 31; Jato Samson, 33; and Francis Blessing, 28, when a cannabis plantation on six hectares was raided at Alaka village.