…as Brazil returnee excretes 60 wraps of cocaine in custody
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has declared an ex-beauty queen, Ms Aderinoye Queen Christmas, also known as Ms Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye, wanted for dealing in illicit drugs.
The NDLEA declared the 2015/2016 Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation wanted after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos residence when the agency’s operatives raided her apartment at Oral Estate, Lekki on Wednesday, 24th January, following credible intelligence that she deals in illicit substances.
During the search in her home which was witnessed by the estate officials, the operatives recovered 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame, among others.
According to a statement issued on Sunday by the NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, said operatives of the anti-narcotic agency similarly arrested a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Ekene Theophilus, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos for ingesting 60 big wraps of cocaine.
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,” Babafemi said.
NDLEA operatives also arrested two members of an international drug trafficking syndicate, Sunday Michael Owoborode, 52, and Valentine Anene, on Thursday, January 25, at Edu Orita, Ogun State.
Anene was being prepared to travel with some drugs to Qatar same day on board a Qatar airline flight from Lagos.
According to the statement, 1.8kg cannabis, electronic weighing scale and other illicit substances were found on them at the time of their arrest.
In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Tuesday, 23rd January recovered a total of 12 cartons of tramadol 225mg containing 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.
Operatives of the Seme Special Area Command of NDLEA recovered not less than 822 kilograms of cannabis sativa hidden in a fuel station located at Ashipa community along Badagry-Seme Road, while a suspect, Sani Audu, 35, was arrested with 111.3kg of same substance at Maigatari town in Jigawa State on Tuesday, 23rd January.
In Yobe State, two suspects, Mohammed Usman and Adamu Ma’azu, were arrested on Saturday, 27th January, with 49 blocks of cannabis sativa weighing 50kg at Damaturu motor park, Damaturu, while the duo of Paul Obor, 38, and Dennis Fuokorighe, 48, who were arrested on Wednesday, 24th Jan. at a Navy checkpoint, Itobe, Ofu LGA, Kogi State, with 318 compressed blocks of cannabis sativa weighing 190.8kg concealed in a gold colour Honda Accord car marked RBC 449AE, were handed over to the Kogi State command of the Agency on Friday, 26th Jan. by men of the Nigeria Navy Ship, Lugard, Lokoja.
