NDLEA arrests Canada-based nurse, others for importing drug into Nigeria

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), have arrested a Nigerian-Canada based nurse, Usman Grace Khadijat Olami, for importing 70 parcels of Canadian Loud weighing 35.70 kg into the country.

Spokesman of the agency, Femi Babafemi who confirmed the arrest of Olami in a statement on Sunday, said she was arrested on October 4 by officers at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, during the inward clearance of Air France passengers arriving from Toronto, Canada, via Paris.

“During her interview, she claimed she was in Nigeria to meet her boyfriend, who instructed her to come with the large consignment of the highly sought-after synthetic cannabis,” the NDLEA image maker said.

In another development, Babafemi said operatives of the agency also arrested two businessmen identified as Ihejirika Emmanuel and Iwuagwu Victory, over alleged drug trafficking.

He stated that Ihejirika, who often travels to Thailand claiming to import fish into Nigeria, was arrested on October 15, 2024, while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Thailand via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“On October 15, Ihejirika was arrested and taken for a body scan, the results showed he had ingested illicit drugs, which were later confirmed to be cocaine.

“As a result, he was placed under excretion observation, during which he expelled five large, egg-sized wraps of cocaine weighing 400 grams. In his statement, the 51-year-old suspect confessed that he was to be paid upon the successful delivery of the drug consignment in Thailand. He said he needed the money to boost his fish importation business.

READ ALSO: NDLEA arrests Thailand returnee for importing heroin worth N3.1bn

“Victory was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, after arriving from Brazil via Addis Ababa during the inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.

“A body scan conducted on the 26-year-old businessman revealed that he had ingested drugs. He subsequently excreted a pellet of cocaine weighing 22 grams.

“He, however, confessed that he ingested 30 wraps of the illicit drug in Brazil but excreted 29 pellets in Addis Ababa, where he handed them over to another person. The suspect revealed that he was to be paid ₦2.5 million for trafficking the drug.

“At the seaports, a total of 162,351 bottles of codeine-based syrup were intercepted from two containers at the Apapa seaport in Lagos by NDLEA operatives during a joint examination of the containers with officials from the Customs Service and other security agencies on Tuesday, October 15.

“Additionally, not less than 7,200,000 pills of Royal 225 mg Tapentadol and Carisoprodol worth ₦3,600,000,000 in street value were seized from a watch-listed container from India at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers State, on Tuesday, October 15.

“In the same container, 780 cartons of chlorphenamine containing 15,600,000 pills of the opioid were also recovered. From two other watch-listed containers that were equally searched at the port in Onne, a total of 337,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth ₦2,359,000,000 were recovered on Tuesday and Thursday, October 15 and 17.

“This brings the total value of the seized Tapentadol, Carisoprodol, and codeine consignments at the two seaports to ₦7,095,457,000.”

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