NDLEA smashes cross-border drug syndicate, arrests six kingpins

NDLEA smashes cross-border drug syndicate, arrests six kingpins

The operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have smashed two major cross-border drug trafficking syndicates with cocaine and opioids worth billions of naira recovered from them.

Duc leaders of the cartels were also arrested in different parts of the country.

Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA Headquarters Abuja, Femi Babafemi, made this known in a statement on Sunday.

Babafemi said the syndicates, which comprise Nigerians based in Mubi, Adamawa, Onitsha, Anambra and Lagos States as well as Cameroonians came under NDLEA radar after they were suspected of being major suppliers of drugs to terror groups operating in Nigeria and Cameroon.

He said, “Leaders of the syndicates so far arrested are Ibrahim Bawuro, Najib Ibrahim, Ibrahim Umar, Nelson Udechukwu Anayo, Ezeh Amaechi Martin and Adejumo Elijah Ishola.

“Intelligence gathered revealed that some psychoactive substances including tramadol were often sourced by Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib from a notorious drug dealer in Onitsha: Nelson Udechukwu Anayo and thereafter packed and concealed in vehicles in the premises of Ezeh Amaechi Martin, an associate of Udechukwu.

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“The duo of Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib will thereafter transport the drugs from Onitsha to Yola and subsequently to other parts of the North and Cameroon in specially constructed false compartments of vehicles, which travel from the East to the North at night.

“On 7th October 2024, Bawuro and Najib were trailed from Onitsha where they had gone to buy another consignment and eventually arrested in Taraba the following day 8th October while a total of 276,500 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Toyota Avensis saloon car marked DKA 57 TT, which they abandoned on the Jalingo-Yola expressway when they noticed NDLEA operatives were on their trail.

“Follow up operations were subsequently carried out in Delta and Anambra states where Ezeh Amaechi Martin and Udechukwu Nelson Anayo were arrested by operatives of the NDLEA Directorate of Intelligence, which coordinated the whole effort with their counterparts in Taraba, Adamawa, Delta and Anambra.

“Another leader of a different syndicate, Adejumo Elijah Ishola, 37, was arrested by operatives of a special operation unit of the Agency on Tuesday 5th November at Seme border in Lagos on his way from Ghana with 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and 600grams of synthetic cannabis. This followed months of intelligence and surveillance on his cross-border criminal activities.”

According to the statement, NDLEA operatives in Apapa seaport Lagos on Wednesday 6th November intercepted Thirty-One Million, Seven Hundred and Fifty Thousand (31,750,000) pills of 240mg Voltron, a controlled opioid, packaged and concealed in a container imported from India, as diclofenac sodium 100mg tablets.

It indicated that the discovery was made during a joint examination of the container with men of Customs Service and other security agencies.

Babafemi said at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, import shed Ikeja Lagos, NDLEA officers on Tuesday 5th November intercepted a 700grams consignment of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis.

 

NDLEA smashes cross-border drug syndicate, arrests six kingpins