The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a 50-year-old businessman, Osuoha Christian Iheanacho, at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, AIIA, Enugu, for ingesting 90 wraps of cocaine.
Osuoha was intercepted on Wednesday, November 20, 2024, at the arrival hall of the Enugu airport during the inbound screening of passengers arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight following months of intelligence and surveillance on him.
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NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, who stated this in a statement, explained that the suspect was subsequently placed on excretion observation, during which he ingested 90 pellets of cocaine weighing 2.019 kilograms in seven excretions.
The NDLEA investigation revealed that the suspect, who operates a phone and accessories business in Lagos and Gabon, Central Africa, travelled by road from Gabon to Douala, Cameroon, from where he took a flight to Addis Ababa, where he swallowed the pellets of cocaine while on transit and after that continued his journey to Enugu with Lagos as his final destination.
Babafemi said Iheanacho deliberately complicated his movement to distort traces of his travel history, which was unknown to him. He has been on the NDLEA watchlist for the past three months.
In his statement, the suspect said he desperately needed the money from the criminal drug trade to boost his declining phone and accessories business.
In another well-coordinated operation carried out by a Special Operations Unit of the NDLEA on Thursday, November 21, the head of a cocaine distribution cartel, 42-year-old Ndive Maxwell Obinna, was arrested along with five of his associates at Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, Lagos.
NDLEA said a total of 2.412 kilograms of cocaine were recovered from them, and other members of the drug trafficking organisation arrested along Obinna include: Okeke Gloria Ifeoma, who is the syndicate’s stash keeper; Ikechebelu Emmanuel Chibuzor; Okorie Onyedikachi; Okonkwo Nnabugo Prince; and Okafor Blessing Anita.
Meanwhile, in a related development, another drug syndicate operated by a Chinese man, 58-year-old Tianzhen Yen (alias Jackie), has been dismantled by NDLEA operatives following his arrest at his hotel in the Ikeja area of Lagos.
Officers of the Seme Special Area Command of the agency had on Thursday, November 21, intercepted a 40-year-old suspect, Yakubu Emmanuel Mark, in a commercial bus going to Ghana at the Gbaji checkpoint along Badagry-Seme expressway based on credible intelligence. When he was searched, a total of 750 grams of cocaine were found in his bag. A swift follow-up operation was organised to trace and arrest the kingpin behind the trans-border drug trafficking syndicate, who turned out to be a Chinese citizen, Tianzhen Yen.
He was eventually traced to the MC Hotel behind Alade Market, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, and when his hotel room was searched, 4.3 grams of cocaine, a gram of methamphetamine, two electronic weighing scales, and a Chinese National Identification Number Card, among other exhibits, were recovered while he was arrested in the vicinity of the hotel.