A Vietnam-bound businessman, Paul Okwuy Mbadugha, has been arrested by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja after he allegedly tested positive to ingestion of cocaine, just as N6.2b worth of codeine syrup was recovered at Onne Port, in Rivers State.
Spokesman for the NDLEA Femi Babafemi said in a statement that, Paul, the 54-year-old suspect was intercepted at the boarding gate of the Abuja airport on Monday 12th August 2024 during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight QR 1432 to Hanoi, Vietnam via Doha.
After four days under excretion observation, Mbadugha egested a total of 88 wraps of the illicit drug with a gross weight of 1.710 kilograms.
The suspect confessed that he is a Lagos based businessman and was given the cocaine pellets to swallow by a friend at Isolo area of the state for onward delivery in Vietnam for a fee of $2,000.
In the same vein, NDLEA officers at the export shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos have intercepted a shipment of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis weighing 800 grams concealed in noodles going to Congo.
A follow-up operation at the Alaba International market, Ojo area of Lagos led to the arrest of the sender of the consignment, Nnamani Sunday Sunny, who deals in GSM handsets.
Meanwhile, no less than Eight Hundred and Ninety-Two Thousand Four Hundred (892,400) bottles of codeine-based syrup worth Six Billion Two Hundred and Forty-Six Million Eight Hundred Thousand Naira (N6,246,800,000.00) in street value were recovered from five containers by NDLEA operatives at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers state.
They were recovered during a joint examination of the containers with men of the Nigeria Customs and other port stakeholders on Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th August 2024.
The bottles of the opioid were packed in 5,337 cartons with a gross weight of 133,860 kilograms and shipped in five containers from India.
