Two kingpins excrete 125 wraps of heroin weighing 2.257kg

As NDLEA intercepts hard drugs across airports, highways

Attempts by two drug kingpins to smuggle consignments of heroin into Nigeria via Port Harcourt International Airport (PHIA) and Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) have been foiled by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

One of the kingpins, who uses dual identities to aid his cross-border movements, holds a Nigerian passport in his original name: Onyekwonike Elochuckwu Sylvanus, 30, and a Sierra Leonean passport under a different name: Kargbo Mohamed Foday.

He was intercepted by NDLEA officers with his Sierra Leonean passport on Sunday, February 2, at Port Harcourt airport, Rivers State, during the inward clearance of passengers on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha via Abuja to Port Harcourt.

He was subsequently taken for a body scan, which confirmed he had ingested illicit drugs, and thereafter placed under excretion observation, during which he expelled a total of 62 wraps of heroin in five excretions, weighing 1.348 kilogrammes.

Investigation reveals that Onyekwonike Elochuckwu Sylvanus (alias Kargbo Mohamed Foday) alternates his two identities for different drug trafficking missions between Thailand, Pakistan, Iran, and West African countries. He claimed to have entered the illicit drug trade full-time in 2017 when his clothing and shoe business failed.

The second kingpin, James Herbert Chinoso, 48, was arrested by NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Saturday, February 1, upon his arrival from Madagascar via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.

After a body scan confirmed illicit drugs in his system, he was placed under excretion observation, during which he egested 63 wraps of heroin with a total weight of 909 grammes.

Chinoso had left Lagos for Madagascar on January 26, 2025 and returned via Addis Ababa after spending a week. He claimed to have entered the criminal trade after his phone accessories business in Liberia collapsed.

Two parcels containing 2.82 kilogrammes of ‘Loud’, a synthetic strain of cannabis imported from the United States with Lagos as the destination, were also intercepted by NDLEA operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation (DOGI) at a courier firm in Lagos on Thursday, February 6.

In another interdiction operation on the same day, but at a different logistics company in Lagos, anti-narcotics officers intercepted 80 ampoules of pentazocine injection, weighing 225 grammes, concealed in cartons destined for Canada.

In Kano, NDLEA operatives on Monday, February 3, arrested Usaini Salisu and Yahaya Mu’azu, both 23 years old, at Gadar Tamburawa along Zaria Road. They recovered 15,396 tramadol pills from a gas cylinder used to conceal the consignment.

In another operation on the same day, operatives apprehended Choima Okeke, 35, with 27 blocks of skunk, a strain of cannabis weighing 15 kg, in the Sabon Gari area of Kano.

A consignment of 12,800 tramadol pills (250 mg) destined for Shuwarin in Jigawa State was intercepted by NDLEA officers on patrol along the Kabba-Obajana highway in Kogi State on Saturday, February 8. A suspect, Salisu Basiru, 33, was arrested.

Similarly, no fewer than 65 parcels of ‘Colorado’, a strong synthetic strain of cannabis weighing 1.6 kg in total, also destined for Jigawa State, were recovered from another suspect, Rufai Hassan, 32, at the same checkpoint on the same day.