AfriqueCAN
A 50-year-old businessman, who allegedly ingested 90 wraps of cocaine at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, AIIA, Enugu, has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA.
According to a statement on Sunday by the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, the suspect was intercepted on Wednesday at the arrival hall of the Enugu airport.
Babafemi said that the suspect was arrested during the inbound screening of passengers arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight following months of intelligence and surveillance on him.
“The suspect was subsequently placed on excretion observation. He excreted 90 pellets of cocaine weighing 2.019kg.
“Investigation revealed that the suspect, who operates a phone and accessories business in Lagos and Gabon, Central Africa, traveled by road from Gabon to Douala, Cameroon.
“This was where he took a flight to Addis Ababa where he swallowed the pellets of cocaine while in transit and thereafter continued his journey to Enugu with Lagos as his final destination, ” Babafemi said.
According to him, the suspect deliberately complicated his movement to distort traces of his travel history unknown to him that he has been on the NDLEA watchlist for the past three months.
The NDLEA spokesperson added that the suspect in his statement said, he desperately needed the money from the criminal drug trade to boost his declining phone and accessories business.
The spokesman said in another well-coordinated operation carried out by a Special Operations Unit of the agency on Thursday, the coordinator of a cocaine distribution cartel, a 42-year-old man, was arrested.
He said that the suspect was arrested along with five of his associates at the Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, Lagos.
Babafemi said that a total of 2.412kg of cocaine was recovered from them.
In a related development, NDLEA dismantled another alleged drug syndicate operated by a 58-year-old Chinese, following his arrest at his hotel in Ikeja area of Lagos.
Babafemi said that officers of the Seme Special Area Command of the agency had on Thursday, intercepted a 40-year-old suspect.
The suspect was intercepted in a commercial bus going to Ghana at the Gbaji checkpoint along Badagry-Seme expressway based on credible intelligence.
