On December 12 and 13, more than 600,000 Tramadol 225mg tablets were confiscated by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in the SAHCO import shed of the Lagos airport. In 60 packets of Indomie noodles that were headed for Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 14, authorities discovered 5,960 Rohypnol tablets stashed within.
According to a statement made by NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi, a female freight agent called Olaleye Adeola was reportedly detained on Sunday in relation to the noodle cargo.
Similar circumstances occurred on Tuesday, December 13, when Zone 2 Police Headquarters in Lagos worked with law enforcement at Balogun market on Lagos Island to detain a dealer called Akunne Chibuzor Tochukwu who was attempting to export a supply of Tramadol to Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Before NDLEA officers confiscated the package at the Lagos airport on November 25, market worker Oke Abosede Ronke, whose services were sought to transfer the drug for export, was detained.
Three suspects, Taofeek Yusuf, Ifeanyi Okorie, and Israel Nwachukwu, were apprehended on the same day when NDLEA operatives in Lagos stopped a truck and a bus in the VGC estate neighbourhood of Ajah with 113 enormous bags of cannabis sativa weighing 4,802.84 kilogrammes each.
A team of NDLEA agents arrested truck driver Umar Hassan, 28, on Thursday, December 15, when he was transporting 1,154,500 tablets of Tramadol, Rohypnol, and Exol from Onitsha, Anambra state, to Gombe.
Based on information they had received, agents in the state of Edo stopped a Honda Ridgeline pickup with the licence plate BWR 699 CV on Friday, December 16, carrying 29 bags of Cannabis Sativa weighing a total of 319 kilogrammes. Driver Alfred Vratombo, 32, was apprehended trying to trick security on the road by dressing up as a police officer.
Similarly, after discovering his shipment of 1,980 bottles of cough syrup with codeine hidden within packs of blenders that had been brought in by another suspect, Chucks Kalu, 29, agents detained Rabilu Sa'ad Abubakar, 42, in a follow-up operation in Kano.
Okrika Kingsley Ozioma, a drug lord, was arrested when Delta state NDLEA agents broke into his residence in Usiefurum town, Ughelli South LGA. In a three-bedroom bungalow building owned by the suspect, who is currently on the run, they discovered an underground drug bunk. On Saturday, December 17, Muhammed Ahmed, 40, was taken into custody in the Darazo region of Bauchi State together with 288 blocks of sativa cannabis totaling 244.5kg. A silver 2003 Golf with the Lagos licence plate number KJA 572 AZ and 17.6 kilogrammes (or around 37 pounds) of drugs were discovered in the bunk.
Yusuf Ayinde, 40, was arrested by Oyo state police on December 17 at his residence in Idi-Ose through Amuloko, Ona-Ara LGA. In the suspect's hands was 50.40 kg of marijuana.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa, Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, commended the officers and personnel of the MMIA, Lagos, Gombe, Edo, Delta, Kaduna, and Oyo state commands for their commitment and alertness, which resulted in the arrests and seizures of the previous week. He pushed them to keep breaking their own achievement records, as well as the records of their fellow countrymen in other organisations.