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•Recovers 12.4m pills of opioids, 6,921.5kg skunk
By Emma Njoku and Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), last Friday, arrested a notorious drug kingpin who specialised in sponsoring young Nigerians to traffic Class A drugs to Europe, especially Italy, in a hotel at the Okota area of Lagos State.
Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, who made the disclosure in a statement, yesterday, said operatives of the agency stormed the hotel when the 48-year-old drug kingpin, Charles Uwagbale, was preparing a recruited courier to swallow 93 pellets of cocaine meant for distribution in Italy.
Babafemi said Uwagbale had recruited Uju Dominic, 35, from his base in Italy, with a deal to come to Nigeria, ingest 100 pellets of cocaine last Friday and return to Italy the following day, being Saturday.
“True to plan, upon the arrival in Nigeria, the mule was lodged in Golden Heaven Hotel, located at Enoma Street, off Ago-Palace Way, Okota, Isolo, Lagos, where Uwagbale brought 93 wraps of the Class A drug for him to swallow at about 23:45pm, Friday night.
“They were in the process when NDLEA operatives, who had been on their trail following credible intelligence, stormed their hotel room, arrested both and recovered the drug exhibits with a total weight of 1.427 kilograms. Operatives of the Lagos State command of the agency, who made the arrest and seizure, had on Thursday, July 20, raided Akala in the Mushin area of the state, where they recovered 37.5kg cannabis from the home of a fleeing suspect,” Babafemi further disclosed.
Meanwhile, attempts to smuggle 98 cartons containing 5, 122, 900 million pills of tramadol 225mg, with an estimated street value of about N3.7 billion into Nigeria, through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, was thwarted through the robust synergy between men of the Nigeria Customs Service and NDLEA officers at the airport, as well as those at the DHL cargo warehouse. Preliminary findings revealed that the consignments were imported from India and Pakistan, while some of the seized consignments had Freetown, Sierra Leone as final destination.
In the same vein, NDLEA operatives in Bauchi State have recovered a total of 6,265,080 million pills of opioids from three suspects: Emmanuel Onyebuchi, 32; Uche Iyida, 33; and Chinedu Ezeanyim, 32, following their arrest alongside a truck driver and his assistant at Shopping Complex, Maiduguri Bye-Pass, Bauchi town, last Wednesday, and the subsequent follow up search of the residence of Iyida, last Friday.
No fewer than 999,500 tablets of Exol-5 were also recovered by operatives from a shop close to the market at Hong Road, Gombi, Adamawa State, last, while 46,000 capsules of tramadol were seized from a suspect, Paul Ajaegbu, 36, along Owerri – Aba road, Imo State, last Monday. Same suspect had earlier been arrested, precisely on February 9, 2023 for the same offence.
In Ondo State, NDLEA operatives in their numbers stormed the Ofosu forest, where they destroyed 29 hectares of cannabis farms last Thursday. The quartet of Osamezu George Chukwuemeka, 51, who owns the farm; his wife, Kate, 43; Agboola Wasiu, 37, and Mustapha Sanni, were arrested during the operation, while 118.5kg processed cannabis was recovered from the farm. In another raid of the warehouse of a suspect at Elegbeka, Ose LGA, not less than 107 jumbo bags of the same illicit substance weighing 1,132.5kg were recovered last Monday.
While operatives in Sokoto State arrested a suspect, Charles Nwankwo, 50, with 610kg of cannabis in the Tamaje area of Sokoto last Friday, their counterparts in Yobe, also same day, nabbed a fleeing suspect, Shaibu Musa, 29, in Dawasa, while he was offering them a bribe of N500,000 following the seizure of 36kg skunk in his house, last Wednesday.
In Edo State, operatives last Monday raided the Utese forest Ovia North East LGA, where they arrested Victor Asukwo Jack, with 59 bags of processed cannabis sativa, weighing 640kg. His two cannabis farms measuring 1.489895 hectares and 2.445295 hectares were destroyed. Also, Endurance Chukwuma, 50, was arrested with seven bags of processed cannabis sativa weighing 68kg, while his cannabis farm measuring 0.254324 hectares was destroyed.
A total of 273kg cannabis was earlier intercepted in a Toyota Sienna vehicle marked RBC 451 CM, last Wednesday, at Ogida, Benin City, and a suspect, Lucky Oriakhi, 41, arrested, while operatives also seized 48,380 pills of tramadol in a commercial bus marked KAK 66 XA, along Ewohimi road, heading to Kabba, Kogi State and arrested the driver, Ibrahim John. In Nasarawa, two suspects: Abubakar Suleiman, 30, and Shehu Garba (aka Shagari), 29, were arrested along Keffi – Akwanga road, last Tuesday, in a Peugeot J5 vehicle loaded with 1,608.4 kilograms of cannabis sativa. The consignment was loaded in Edo State and meant for distribution in Bauchi State.
While a total of 1,556.1kg of cannabis was recovered from two suspects: Jonathan Nuhu, 54 and Mohammed Abubakar, 18, following their arrest at the Wudil area of Kano State, last Thursday, 76kg of same substance was seized from Yakubu Muhammad, 32, last Monday, along Okene/Lokoja highway, in a trailer coming from Port Harcourt to Kano. In the same vein, operatives in Ogun State, last Wednesday, recovered 810 parcels of cannabis weighing 604kg from the house of one Adetunji Abiodun.
Fresh bid to smuggle into Nigeria, another consignment of colorado, a synthetic variant of cannabis, through the Tincan port in Apapa Lagos, was, again, last Friday, frustrated by NDLEA officers who discovered a total of 323 parcels of the illicit substance weighing 161.5kg, concealed in one of the four used vehicles in a container marked MEDU 7519460, coming from Montreal, Canada, during a joint examination of the shipment.
At least, three suspects are currently in NDLEA custody over the shipment, while a bribe of N20 million converted to $22,900 offered by the importer’s agents were recovered and documented as evidence.
Impressed by the volume of arrests and seizures made by officers and men of MMIA, Lagos, Bauchi, Adamawa, Ondo, Sokoto, Yobe, Edo, Imo, Kano, Kogi, Ogun, Nasarawa and Tincan commands in the past week, Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd) commended them for jobs well done, while he urged them and their counterparts across the country to continue the synergy with other security agencies and stakeholders in the fight against substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking.
