IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Two Pakistani businessmen have been arrested with 8 kilograms of cocaine concealed in a public address system while attempting to board a Qatar Airways flight to Lahole, Pakistan via Doha.
The operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) arrested the Pakistanis at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Lagos on Saturday.
The spokesperson of the agency, Femi Babafemi, in a statement on Sunday, 6 November, said the two suspects: Asif Muhammed, 45 and Hussain Naveed, 57, hold Nigerian residence permits.
The residence permit are suspected to be fake but the duo are frequent travelers to Nigeria under the guise of doing textile business.
They were arrested on Saturday, 5 November, at the Lagos airport barely a week after they came to Nigeria, which is, Sunday, 30 October.
Operatives at the SAHCO import shed of the airport on Friday, 4 November, 2022, seized 13 cartons of Tramadol 225mg and 200mg imported from Karachi, Pakistan.
The consignment has a total weight of 465.10kg and 642,800 pills of the pharmaceutical opioid.
Meanwhile, two businessmen who had been on the run for months over their alleged involvement in drug trafficking, have been arrested by anti-narcotic officers assigned to track them.
Nnebo Ikechukwu Christopher who has been wanted for his role in the importation of 40 cartons containing 346,800 pills of Co-codamol, a brand of paracetamol with Codeine seized at the cargo wing of the MMIA local airport since March 2022, was arrested on Thursday, 3 November.
In the same vein, operatives on the trail of an automobile parts dealer, Omeje Oliver (a.k.a David Mark) since April eventually arrested him on Monday, 31 October, in Enugu where he fled to, after abandoning his business at Aspanda, Trade Fair Complex Lagos.
The same day, Omeje was arrested by the operatives at the SAHCO export shed of the Lagos airport.
The NDLEA operatives intercepted 550 grams of cannabis loud concealed in machine parts going to Dubai, UAE, while the sender, Ogbure Victor Ifeanyi was later arrested.
In the same vein, operatives on Thursday, 3 November, stormed the Egbeta forest in Ovia North East where they recovered 112 bags of cannabis and 8 bags of seeds with a combined weight of 1,598.5kgs, while another team evacuated 27 bags of same substance weighing 314kgs at Amahor village in Igueben LGA.
Chairman of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa commend the officers and men of the MMIA, Edo and Kaduna Commands of the Agency for the successful operations in the past week.
He urged them and their counterparts across the country not to rest on their oars until all drug syndicates operating in Nigeria are completely dismantled and the last gram of illicit substance taken out of the streets.