NDLEA seizes N4.5b cocaine from Lagos airport, others, grills 30 suspects

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has seized drug consignments worth N4.5 billion recovered from two lavatories on an Ethiopian Airlines flight, ET900, during post-landing cleaning at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.

The flight had arrived from Addis Ababa.
The seized drugs, totalling 845 wraps of cocaine and weighing 18.72 kilogrammes, were smuggled into Nigeria by an international drug syndicate operating between Brazil, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.

The consignments, hidden in nine polythene bags within the waste collectors of the aircraft’s two rear lavatories, were discovered after the NDLEA’s MMIA Strategic Command was alerted to suspicious objects.

So far, 30 suspects have been questioned in connection with the haul.
Investigations revealed that the drugs were transported from Brazil to Ethiopia, ingested by a group of couriers, and excreted in Addis Ababa, where they were collected by other traffickers attempting to smuggle them into Nigeria through the Lagos airport.

In a related development, NDLEA officers thwarted attempts by syndicates to export 2.93 kilogrammes of cocaine, cannabis, and tramadol to Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

These drugs were hidden in body cream containers and artwork intended for shipment through courier companies in Lagos.

At the Lagos’s Apapa seaport, on October 29, NDLEA operatives intercepted a shipment of 754,000 pills of tapentadol and acetaminophen from India, valued at N525 million, during a joint inspection with Customs.

Meanwhile, in Abuja, operatives arrested Mujahid Hamisu, 24, with 147,000 tramadol pills on November 2. Another suspect, Seun Abimbola, 47, was detained on the same day with 512 grams of methamphetamine in the Giri area.

In Kogi State, NDLEA operatives on patrol arrested two suspects, recovering counterfeit N4.35 million from one and 68 blocks of cannabis from the other, weighing 27.4 kilogrammes.

In further operations, a notorious dealer was apprehended in Katsina. At the same time, arrests in Adamawa, Taraba, Ondo, Kaduna, and Edo states led to more drug seizures as NDLEA continued its crackdown on narcotics networks across Nigeria.