The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) arrested a drug trafficker, Egbo Emmanuel, at the Lagos airport after a body scanner detected that he had swallowed heroin wraps. This was disclosed by the NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Sunday.
According to Babafemi, the suspect was caught on October 14 while trying to board an Air France flight to Paris, France. He confessed that he worked at a chicken hatchery farm in Madrid, Spain, and also in the drug business. He was taken to the agency’s exhibit recovery room where he excreted 93 pellets of heroin weighing 2.222 kilogrammes.
On Monday, October 16, the NDLEA also seized 10 cartons containing 500,000 pills of tramadol 225mg at the NAHCO imports shed of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos. The tramadol pills were branded as tapentadol and shipped from India through Qatar Airways with airwaybill number MAWB 319-01227236.
The cargo was claimed to be a transit cargo to Monrovia, Liberia, but the NDLEA and its Liberian counterpart uncovered the truth through partnership and real-time intelligence-sharing mechanisms.
Another suspect, Ngene Chinecherem, was arrested at the Lagos airport while attempting to export 11.100kgs of skunk and 600 grams of tramadol to Muscat, Oman on Qatar Airways. The illicit substances were concealed in foodstuffs.