From Godwin Tsa
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has uncovered and dismantled a syndicate that sponsors Hajj pilgrims who also serve as couriers to move cocaine to Saudi Arabia during pilgrimage.
The breakthrough followed the arrest of leaders of the cartel in Kano.
In another successful operation, operatives of the agency nabbed two Saudi-bound pilgrims and a businessman going to Iran for ingesting 155 cocaine wraps and intercepted N9.3 billion worth of opioids in Rivers.
A statement by the Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, revealed the names of the arrested kingpins as Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Muhammed Tijjani, and Muhammad Aji Shugaba.
Babafemi further disclosed that their arrest in Kano on Tuesday, May 27, and Wednesday, May 28, was a follow-up to the arrest of two pilgrims, Ibrahim Umar Mustapha and Muhammad Siraj Shifado, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, on Monday, May 26, during the outward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight ET 940 to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The interdiction of the intending pilgrims at the NDLEA final screening point at the Kano airport was based on credible intelligence. When they were taken for scanning, the result confirmed ingestion of illicit substances.
They were subsequently placed on excretion observation, during which they excreted 45 wraps of cocaine each, bringing the total for both to 90 pellets with a total weight of 1.04 kg.
Investigation soon unravelled their sponsors as leaders of a notorious drug trafficking network, which specialises in trafficking illicit drugs to Saudi Arabia.
A swift follow-up operation was carried out, and the trio of Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Muhammed Tijjani, and Muhammad Aji Shugaba were arrested on Tuesday, May 27, and Wednesday, May 28, in Kano.
In a related development, NDLEA operatives at the Kano airport on Wednesday, May 28, intercepted a 60-year-old businessman, Chinedu Leonard Okigbo, during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight QR1432 to Iran.
His body scan confirmed he ingested illicit substances, as a result of which he was placed on excretion observation, during which he excreted 65 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.41 kg.
At the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers State, no fewer than seven watch-listed containers were positioned for joint examination by NDLEA officers, men of Customs Service, and other security agencies between Wednesday, May 28, and Friday, May 30, during which 825,200 bottles of codeine-based syrup and Trodol worth N5,776,400,000 in street value were seized, while a total of 5,100,000 pills of opioids, especially tapentadol 225 mg, worth N3,570,000,000 were recovered. This brings the combined street value of the opioids to N9,346,400,000.
In another operation in Kano, NDLEA operatives on patrol along Kano-Maiduguri road on Friday, May 30, intercepted Abubakar Hussein, 42, and Sahabi Adamu, 53, with nine hundred thousand US dollars ($900,000) cash suspected to be counterfeit.
The suspects and the exhibit will be transferred to the appropriate agency for further investigation.
While a total of 390 compressed blocks of skunk, a strain of cannabis weighing 275.3 kg, were recovered from a parked Toyota Sienna vehicle marked YLA-408GG along Ngurore-Yola road, Adamawa State, on Tuesday, May 27, NDLEA operatives in Kwara, on Saturday, May 31, arrested a notorious female drug dealer, Alhaja Mutiat Abdul-Fatai, at the Oja Oba area of Ilorin, where various quantities of opioids, including tramadol, flunitrazepam, and codeine-based syrup, were seized from her.
The War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) social advocacy activities by NDLEA Commands continued across the country in the past week.
Some of them include WADA sensitisation lectures delivered to students and staff of Government Day Senior Secondary School, Kwasarawa, Katsina; Corpus Christi College, Achi, Enugu; Epignosis Standard College, Onitsha, Anambra; Government Girls Secondary School, Utai, Wudil LGA, Kano; and Government Girls Secondary School, Calabar, Cross River, among others.
While commending the officers and men of MAKIA, PHPC, Kano, Kwara, and Adamawa Commands of the Agency for the arrests and seizures of the past week, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), equally praised their counterparts in all the commands across the country for pursuing a fair balance between their drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction efforts.