Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja Lagos, on New Year’s Day, intercepted a consignment of colorado, a very strong strain of cannabis, concealed in boxing kits imported from the United States of America.
The spokesperson for the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, revealed that a weeklong intelligence-led operation to get the receiver arrested was consummated on Saturday, January 6 following the successful tracking and arrest of 38-year-old Olorunfunmi Olakunle who distributed the dangerous psychoactive substance to dealers across Lagos State.
Babafemi added, “The consignment had arrived in the country on Monday, January 1 via Cairo on an Egypt Airlines flight marked as boxing kits. According to Olakunle, he delivers such consignments to different recipients whenever his childhood friend, US-based Sagir Salami, sends them. The latest shipment has a total weight of 1.80 kilograms.
“Meanwhile, a 28-year-old female supplier of ammunition to bandits, Bilkisu Suleman, came top on the list of 12 other suspects arrested by the NDLEA operatives in the New Year interdiction operations in Kaduna, Lagos, Niger, Kogi, Kano, Borno, and Osun states. Bilkisu was arrested on Wednesday, January 3 by the NDLEA officers on patrol along the Zaria–Kano Expressway in possession of 249 rounds of 7.62 mm live ammunition concealed in a black nylon bag kept in her lady’s handbag.
“She was on her way to deliver the ammunition to an identified bandit in Kakumi village, Katsina State when she was nabbed after which she was transferred to the Kaduna State Command of the Nigeria Police Force for further investigation.”
He further revealed that the military authorities at the Bonny Camp Cantonment in Lagos on Tuesday, January 2, transferred a suspect, Francis Suru, 37, and 63 jumbo bags of Ghanaian Loud, a strain of cannabis, weighing 2,104.2 kilograms and a truck to the Lagos State Command of the NDLEA.
“The suspect and the drug exhibits were earlier intercepted by the NDLEA officers on December 12, 2023, close to the gate of the military cantonment in Bonny Camp, Victoria Island. Some armed escorts however resorted to sporadic shooting to obstruct the operation, a development which attracted soldiers from the cantonment, who eventually intervened and took custody of the consignment and suspect before transferring them to the agency,” Babafemi noted.
Meanwhile, the NDLEA operatives in Niger State on Thursday, January 5, during a stop and search operation along the Suleja-Kaduna Road intercepted a J5 bus coming from Ondo State to Zaria, Kaduna State with 23 bags of cannabis sativa weighing 219.5kg. Two suspects: Umar Musa, 26 and Isachiru Abubakar, were arrested in connection with the seizure.
While a female drug trafficker, Queen Onyema, 27, was arrested on Saturday, January 6 in a commercial bus en route to Abuja along the Okene-Lokoja Expressway with 12 compressed blocks of cannabis weighing 4.6kg and 0.046kg designer drugs concealed in an Indomie carton, another suspect Mubarak Sani, 20, was nabbed at the Gadar Tamburawa area of Kano on Monday, January 1 with 445.9k kilograms of the same psychoactive substance.
In Borno State, four suspects: Zanna Alhaji Dala, 32; Musa Umar, 21; Mushe Ibrahim, 23, and Shehu Idris, 19 were arrested at the Pomfomari Bye-pass area of the state with 60kg of cannabis.
Also, in Osun State, the NDLEA operatives on patrol along the Osogbo-Ode Omu Road on January 1 intercepted a consignment of illicit drugs sent through waybill from Lagos to Osogbo. Babafemu noted that a follow-up operation led to the arrest of Ibrahim Olawale, 43. The drugs recovered include cannabis sativa 10.8kg; Loud 150 grams; Colorado 19 grams; Molly 5 grams totalling 10.974kg, a digital scale, N18,000 monetary exhibit and customised wrapping papers for Colorado were also seized.
