The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a total of 24 suspected drug traffickers and dealers, including a 42-year-old man caught transporting thousands of concealed opioid pills to an insurgents’ enclave in the Banki area of Borno State.
The NDLEA also arrested a six-month-pregnant lady, a mother of three children, and three other women in major interdiction operations.
NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said in a statement at the weekend that these operations led to the seizure of over 7,609 kilograms of assorted illicit drugs in eight states.
The bulk of the seizures was made in Nasarawa state where NDLEA operatives, acting on credible intelligence on Sunday, February 4, intercepted a truck marked Lagos JJJ 64 YC conveying 367 jumbo bags of cannabis sativa weighing 4,037 kilograms from Akure, Ondo state, to be delivered at Shabu area of Lafia, the state capital.
The NDLEA said three suspects: Shuaibu Yahaya Liman, 35; Monday Audu, 33; and Linus Samuel, 42, were arrested in connection with the seizure.
The following day, Monday, February 5, operatives in Abuja, FCT, arrested the duo of Jibrin Shuaibu, 23, and Prosper Innih, 17, with 169 bags and 80 blocks of compressed cannabis sativa weighing 1,961.5kgs concealed in a truck with registration number Ogun WDE 557 XC.
The NDLEA spokesperson said the truck was intercepted during a stop and search operation along the Abaji – Abuja highway on their way from Uzeba to Dei-Dei, FCT.
In another operation by NDLEA operatives in Abuja on Tuesday, February 6, a suspect, Abdulhameed Dauda, 27, was arrested with 89kgs of the same psychoactive substance loaded into his truck in Owo, Ondo State, to be delivered at Gwagwalada in FCT.
On the same day, operatives also intercepted another driver, Hassan Ade, 30, transporting 696.5kgs of the same substance loaded in Idoani, Ondo State to be delivered at Gwagwalada and Dei-Dei in FCT. A follow-up operation led to the arrest of a mother of three children, Mrs. Joy Chukwuka, 42, linked with the consignment.
