The Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has intercepted three trailer loads of opioids, comprising 3,450,000 pills and 344,000 bottles of codeine syrup, at Abule Ado in Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos State.
NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, disclosed in a statement on Sunday that three suspects were also arrested in connection with the seizure.
Babafemi said the multi-billion naira consignments were loaded into two 40-foot container trucks and another 20-foot truck at the AML bonded terminal, Abule-Osun, near the International Trade Fair complex before heading to a large warehouse at Abule-Ado, where NDLEA officers eventually arrested the suspects and recovered the opioid consignments on Thursday.
Those arrested include the warehouse agent, Cosmas Obiajulu, 51; Ridwan Balogun, 25, and Banjo Tayo, 30, both drivers of two of the trucks, while the third driver jumped off to escape arrest.
In a similar development, NDLEA operatives arrested a suspect, Nwankwo Ejike, on May 7th in Coker area of Lagos, where 100 litres of codeine syrup were recovered from him while 60 litres of the same substance were seized from Clinton Akinye in the same area the same day.
“Not less than 37.5kg of cannabis sativa loaded in a Toyota Camry car was recovered from another suspect, Adegbola Segun, 47, when the car was intercepted at Mile 12 area of Lagos on Monday, May 6th,” Babafemi said.
“Another consignment of opioids consisting of 59,106 pills of tramadol and different quantities of codeine syrup and Rohypnol being taken across the border to Garua, Cameroon, was intercepted by NDLEA officers on Monday, May 6th, along Mubi-Yola Road, Adamawa State.
“Two suspects linked to the drugs: Abubakar Auwal, 39, and Adamu Abubakar, 25, (a.k.a. Bamanga), a trans-border trafficker who was to take the consignment from Mubi across to
Cameroon were promptly arrested.”
