ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has issued a wanted notice for former beauty queen Ms. Aderinoye Queen Christmas, also known as Ms. Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye, in connection with her alleged involvement in illicit substance deals.
NDLEA operatives declared her wanted after a raid on her Lekki, Lagos residence on Wednesday, following credible intelligence pointing to her participation in drug-related activities.
Ms. Aderinoye, a former Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of the Queen Christmas Foundation, managed to evade arrest during the raid.
Recovered items from her residence included 606 grams of Canadian Loud (a synthetic strain of cannabis), an electronic weighing scale, significant quantities of drug packaging materials, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and a picture frame, among other items.
The NDLEA also announced the arrest of a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Ekene Theophilus, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.
Udechukwu was apprehended for ingesting 60 large wraps of cocaine during the inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil, via Addis Ababa.
In other drug-related operations, NDLEA operatives recovered twelve cartons of tramadol 225mg (599,900 pills weighing 385.40kg) at the Lagos airport from an overstayed cargo.
Additionally, significant drug seizures were made in different states, including Yobe, Kano, Plateau, Lagos, Ogun, and Anambra.
Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd), commended the officers and men for their outstanding efforts in the past week.
READ ALSO: NDLEA Foils Attempt To Smuggle Drugs To Europe Concealed In Milo Tin
He acknowledged the balance between drug supply reduction and drug demand reduction activities through intensified War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) advocacy lectures across various commands in the country.
Spokesman of NDLEA, Femi Babafemi who made this known said, “The suspect who was arrested during inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the D-Arrival Hall of the Lagos airport on Sunday 21st January 2024, initially refused to undergo body scan, raising health concerns in a desperate bid to evade arrest.
“When he was however offered other options, he accepted to be placed on excretion observation and shortly after he was ushered into NDLEA observatory, he excreted the first set of cocaine pellets, after which he expelled a total of 60 wraps of the class A drug weighing 1.279 kilograms in five excretions.
“In his statement, Udechukwu claimed he ingested the consignment in Brazil and was to discharge everything at the airport in Addis Ababa but could only excrete 15 pellets which he handed over to another member of his syndicate before his connecting flight to Nigeria was called.
“In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Tuesday 23rd January recovered a total of twelve (12) cartons of tramadol 225mg containing five hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred (599,900) pills weighing 385.40kg from an overstayed cargo at the SAHCO import shed of the Lagos airport after a joint examination with other agencies.
“The tramadol consignment had come into the country in two batches on KLM Royal Dutch Airline flights from Karachi, Pakistan between 27th July and 1st August 2023.
“They were however placed under watch by NDLEA operatives since then”.
He continued, “Not less than 822 kilograms of cannabis sativa hidden in a fuel station located at Ashipa community along Badagry-Seme road were recovered by operatives of the Seme Special Area Command of NDLEA, while a suspect Sani Audu, 35, was arrested with 111.3kg of same substance at Maigatari town in Jigawa State on Tuesday 23rd January.”