The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a drug kingpin wanted for attempts to ship illicit drug consignments to the United Kingdom.
The arrest of the drug kingpin, an NDLEA statement said, tops the list of arrests made by operatives of the Agency through interdiction operations that led to the seizure of four tons of illicit substances in the past week.
Obiorah Chigozie Samuel has been on the wanted list of the Agency since 15th September 2023 when a consignment of 1.500kg skunk concealed in flour going to London, UK was intercepted at the SAHCO export shed of the Lagos International Airport and his freight agent, Nworah Adaugo Precious arrested.
Convinced that the 1.500kg consignment had sailed through, the Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Mr. Femi Babafemi said, Obiorah walked into the Agency’s dragnet on Thursday 28th September when he personally brought another tranche of 2.00kg concealed in cartons to the airport for shipment to the UK. In his interview, Obiorah claimed he was into shoe sales in Lagos before venturing into the illicit drug business.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Federal Capital Territory Command of the Agency on Friday intercepted a container truck with registration number BD G41 XM coming from Lagos to Kano at the Gwagwalada area of the FCT and no less than 1,188 kilograms of skunk loaded at Owo, Ondo state and hidden under cartons of toothpaste were recovered from the truck and its driver, Amafan Fattison arrested.
In the same vein, NDLEA officers in Bayelsa state on Wednesday seized 432kgs of the same substance from an abandoned J5 bus along Saipem road, Opolo, Yenagoa. The vehicle was equally recovered from the scene for further investigation.
In Kano state, a septuagenarian grandpa, Ado Mai Unguwa, 70, was arrested on Saturday with 143.2kgs skunk in Dindere village, Tofa LGA, while operatives in Enugu, on the same day, recovered 110.6kgs of same substance from a locked-up shop at Aria new market.
Operatives in Lagos also on Saturday, stormed the notorious Idi-Oro drug enclave in Mushin where they seized 212.5kgs of cannabis sativa belonging to a wanted drug lord. This is even as NDLEA officers in Kwara state recovered 104kgs of skunk from a Toyota Camry car in the Offa area of the state, while a Chadian, Mohammed Ibrahim was nabbed at Mafa checkpoint, Borno state with 11.8kgs of the same substance on 25th September.
In Plateau, Babafemi said, the state police command in the spirit of inter-agency collaboration transferred four suspects: Yusuf Akim; Frank Gah; Jackson Ejeh, Joseph Utsu and 1,978kgs cannabis recovered from them to the state command of the NDLEA, while in Cross River, operatives on 25th September seized 40,000 ampules of pentazocine injection from two suspects: Fajulugbe Adeshola Temitayo and Nnaorji Agwe Solomon at Mobil by MCC road, Calabar.
Also in Kogi state, he said NDLEA officers on 27th September arrested a suspect, Ifeanyi Odoh with 59,867 pills of opioids including Tramadol and 4.03kgs cannabis sativa at Idah area of the state and added that the War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) advocacy activities equally continued across the country in the past week.
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