By Lateef Taiwo
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested three blind men operating an illicit drug ring between Lagos and Kano.
The NDLEA disclosed this in a statement signed by the Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, and shared on the agency’s Facebook page Sunday.
Babafemi said the lid was blown off the group following the arrest of a blind suspect, Adamu Hassan, 40, along Gwagwalada expressway Abuja with 12kgs of skunk on his way from Lagos to Kano on Saturday 28th, October.
Investigations, however, established that he was totally oblivious to the contents of the bag handed to him to deliver in Kano.
The statement in part said, “No less than Fourteen Million, Four Hundred and Eighty-One Thousand, Five Hundred and Nineteen (14, 481, 519) pills of Tramadol and bottles of codeine syrup worth over thirteen billion Naira (N13,000,000,000) in street value have been recovered by operatives of the National Drug Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, in three major busts of drug cartels operating in Amuwo Odofin, Idumota and the SAHCO shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja Lagos.
“The three intelligence-led operations began with the raid of House 8/10 Hon. Wahuha Avenue, Divine Estate, Ago Palace area of Amuwo Odofin on Sunday 29th October, where 490,000 pills of Tramadol and 81,519 bottles of codeine syrup measuring 4, 510, 000mls were recovered.
“In a similar operation on Tuesday 31st October, NDLEA operatives swooped on a secret warehouse operated by a billionaire Idumota trader, Nwaoha Anayo, located at Onitire, Aguda area of Surulere where Twelve Million Seven Hundred Thousand (12, 700, 000) pills of Tramadol were recovered.
“In the same vein, at least six members of a syndicate using their official cover to facilitate the smuggling of illicit drugs through the Skyway Aviation Handling Company (SAHCO) warehouse at the Lagos airport into the country have been arrested and One Million Two Hundred and Ten Thousand (1, 210, 000) pills of Tramadol seized from them in a painstaking operation that lasted for weeks.
“The six suspects already in NDLEA custody include Oladele Sanya-Olu; Lawal Itunu Temitope, Sanamo Alla Daniel; Udeh Felix Monday, Musa Mutalib and Unege Evans Icibor, while three other suspects: Sarki Mubarak Salami; Abdullahi Aliyu (aka Aboki); and Monday Anwal, are now on the run and wanted by NDLEA.
“At the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA, Abuja, NDLEA operatives on Sunday 29th October intercepted yet another businessman, 50-year-old Nwokolo Ifeanyi Anthony, during the outward clearance of Air France flight AF 878 to Amsterdam, Netherlands via Paris, France at the boarding gate and was body scanned. The result turned out to be positive for illicit drug ingestion.
“The suspect, who traveled from Lagos to board the flight, was subsequently kept under observation for some days, during which he excreted a total of 86 pellets of heroin weighing 1.330 kilogrammes.”
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