Businessman, Osuoha Iheanacho, has been arrested at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA) in Enugu for allegedly ingesting 90 wraps of cocaine.
In a statement on Sunday, spokesman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Femi Babafemi, said the 50-year-old was intercepted on November 20, 2024, at the arrival hall of Enugu airport during the inbound screening of passengers arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
This follows months of intelligence and surveillance on him. He was subsequently placed on excretion observation, during which he egested 90 pellets of cocaine weighing 2.019 kilograms in seven excretions.
Mr Babafemi 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 there, he flew to Addis Ababa, where he swallowed the pellets of cocaine while in transit before continuing his journey to Enugu, with Lagos as his final destination.
He deliberately complicated his travel itinerary to obscure traces of his travel history, unaware that he had been on the NDLEA’s watchlist for the past three months.
In his statement, Osuoha admitted that he desperately needed the money from the criminal drug trade to revive his struggling phone and accessories business.
In another operation conducted by the NDLEA’s Special Operations Unit on Thursday, head of a cocaine distribution cartel, 42-year-old Ndive Obinna, was arrested along with five of his associates at Ago Palace Way in Okota, Isolo, Lagos. A total of 2.412 kilograms of cocaine was recovered from them.
Other members of the drug trafficking organisation arrested alongside Obinna include Okeke Ifeoma, the syndicate’s stash keeper, Ikechebelu Chibuzor, Okorie Onyedikachi, Okonkwo Prince and Okafor Blessing.
In a related development, Babafemi stated that NDLEA operatives dismantled another drug syndicate operated by a Chinese man, 58-year-old Tianzhen Yen (alias Jackie), following his arrest at his hotel in the Ikeja area of Lagos State.
Officers of the Seme Special Area Command of the Agency had, on Thursday, intercepted a 40-year-old suspect, Yakubu Emmanuel Mark, in a commercial bus heading to Ghana at the Gbaji checkpoint along the Badagry-Seme expressway, based on credible intelligence.
When he was searched, a total of 750 grams of cocaine was found in his bag. A swift follow-up operation traced and arrested the kingpin behind the trans-border drug trafficking syndicate, identified as the Chinese citizen Tianzhen Yen.
He was eventually apprehended at MC Hotel, behind Alade Market, Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos.
The statement added that when his hotel room was searched, 4.3 grams of cocaine, 1 gram of methamphetamine, two electronic weighing scales, a Chinese National Identification Number card, and other exhibits were recovered. Yen was arrested in the hotel vicinity.
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