Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested two Saudi-bound pilgrims at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport after they were found to have ingested illicit drugs.
According to NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi, both suspects were placed under excretion observation and expelled 45 wraps of cocaine each, totaling 90 pellets with a combined weight of 1.04kg.
“The interdiction at the final NDLEA screening point followed credible intelligence. Scans confirmed ingestion, prompting the excretion process,” Babafemi said in a statement on Sunday.
The NDLEA also dismantled a drug syndicate that allegedly sponsors hajj pilgrims as drug couriers to Saudi Arabia. A follow-up operation led to the arrest of three suspected ringleaders—Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Muhammed Tijjani, and Muhammad Aji Shugaba—on May 27 and 28 in Kano.
In a separate case, a 60-year-old businessman, Chinedu Leonard Okigbo, was intercepted at Kano airport on May 28 while attempting to board a Qatar Airways flight to Iran. After a body scan confirmed he had ingested drugs, Okigbo expelled 65 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.41kg.
Meanwhile, joint operations at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers State, between May 28 and 30 led to the seizure of 825,200 bottles of codeine-based syrup and Trodol valued at ₦5.7 billion. An additional 5.1 million pills of opioids, mostly Tapentadol 225mg, worth ₦3.57 billion were also recovered.
In another operation along the Kano-Maiduguri road on May 30, NDLEA officers arrested Abubakar Hussein, 42, and Sahabi Adamu, 53, with $900,000 in suspected counterfeit currency. The case has been handed to the appropriate agency for further investigation.
Elsewhere, 390 blocks of cannabis (skunk) weighing 275.3kg were recovered from a parked Toyota Sienna along the Ngurore–Yola road in Adamawa State on May 27.
In Kwara State, a notorious female drug dealer, Alhaja Mutiat Abdul-Fatai, was arrested on May 31 at Oja Oba in Ilorin. Various quantities of tramadol, flunitrazepam, and codeine-based syrup were seized during the raid.
