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NDLEA destroys warehouses with 317.4 metric tons of Indian hemp in Edo

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The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has destroyed warehouses and tents for storage of Cannabis Sativa also known as Indian hemp in Edo State.

The NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, who confirmed the development in a statement on Saturday in Abuja, said the facilities used for the storage of 317,417 kilograms (317.4 metric tons) of Cannabis Sativa in a forest at Opuje community of Owan West local government area of the state were destroyed and set ablaze by the operatives.

He added that four persons, including a man posing as a police inspector, were arrested by the operatives.

The spokesman also revealed that the NDLEA operatives in collaboration with their Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) counterparts arrested three members of a criminal syndicate involved in the trafficking of fake United States dollars last Thursday in Lagos.

The arrest of the suspects, according to Babafemi, followed intelligence received from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the US.

READ ALSO: NDLEA arrests Brazil returnee with 105 parcels of cocaine in Lagos

The statement read: “The Opuje community in Owan West Local Government Area, Edo State, is notorious for cannabis cultivation, where the cartels invest huge resources, cutting down economic trees of the forest reserves and cultivating cannabis on a large scale, running into hundreds of hectares.

“After harvest, they build warehouses inside the forest reserves and employ the services of armed youths to protect the warehouses 24/7.

“Accessing the forest on Wednesday 18th January took hours of trekking by hundreds of NDLEA operatives who were ambushed with a bonfire by armed youths on their way out of the community the following day but were able to successfully leave the area without any casualty except the heavy investment losses inflicted on the cartels.

“Also, during a combined operation carried out by NDLEA operatives with their EFCC colleagues, a total of $269,000 counterfeit US dollars were recovered from the syndicate at Oniru Shoprite area of Lekki, Lagos, where three suspects were arrested.”

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