The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a 40-year-old businessman, Sherif Egbo, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja while attempting to board a flight to Paris, France.
The NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, in a statement issued Sunday the operatives of the agency arrested Egbo, based in Madrid, Spain, was apprehended on October 14.
He said a body scanner revealed that he had ingested wraps of illicit drugs in his stomach, leading to his arrest.
Babafemi said, “He was subsequently placed under observation at the agency’s exhibit recovery room where he excreted 93 pellets of heroin weighing 2.222 kilogrammes. In his statement, the suspect claimed he works at a chicken hatchery farm in Madrid, Spain, and also in the drug trafficking business.”
He added that on October 16, at the NAHCO imports shed off the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, NDLEA operatives seized a consignment containing ten cartons, which held 500,000 pills of tramadol 225mg, branded as tapentadol.
Babafemi noted that the cargo shipped from India through Qatar Airways, was supposed to be a transit cargo to Monrovia, Liberia.
However, he said, collaboration and real-time intelligence sharing between NDLEA and its Liberian counterpart revealed the true nature of the shipment.
Babafemi stressed that another passenger, Ngene Chinecherem, attempted to export 11.100 kilograms of skunk and 600 grams of tramadol, concealed in foodstuffs, through the Lagos airport on Qatar Airways but was thwarted by NDLEA officers. Chinecherem was arrested, and the illicit substances were seized.
He noted that in another operation, NDLEA officers attached to courier companies intercepted 1 kilogram of methamphetamine concealed in containers of body cream intended for New Zealand.
The operatives also discovered a consignment of 2.5 kilograms of cocaine and phenacetin hidden in the walls of a carton destined for Saudi Arabia.