The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a 30-year-old Brazilian woman, Ingrid Benevides, with 30.09 kilograms of heroin, the largest single heroin seizure at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi disclosed in a statement on Sunday that the drugs, valued at over ₦3 billion on the street, were concealed inside factory-sealed coffee packs. Benevides was intercepted on Friday after arriving on a Qatar Airways flight.
According to the agency, the suspect, a private security officer in Brazil, had been under intelligence-led surveillance prior to her arrest.
“When the coffee bags were opened, instead of the beverage, they contained white substances that later tested positive for heroin, weighing a total of 30.09 kilograms,” the statement read.
During a preliminary interview, Benevides claimed she brought the heroin consignment to Nigeria under the guise of a holiday. A search of her two checked-in bags revealed 21 factory-sealed packs of Brazilian coffee, each containing the illicit substance.
Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, intercepted Adediran Adedoyin and Afatakpa Ochuko on January 20 while en route to Istanbul, Turkey. The suspects were found with 3,990 pills of tapentadol (250mg) and tramadol (225mg) concealed in food items packed in their luggage.
In Lagos, the NDLEA Marine Command intercepted a wooden boat loaded with 44 jumbo bags of Ghana Loud cannabis, weighing 1,848 kilograms, at Jakande Beach, Lekki, in the early hours of January 22. “The shipment had just arrived from Ghana when NDLEA officers, acting on credible intelligence, recovered the consignment and the boat around 1 a.m.,” Babafemi said.
In Kaduna, two suspects, Aminu Baba (20) and Abdulrasheed Abubakar (28), were arrested over two bags containing 140 packets of explosives intercepted along the Kaduna–Zaria highway. The explosives were seized from a commercial bus, and the suspects were arrested during follow-up operations in Kano and Kaduna.
