NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Fresh attempts to export various quantities of methamphetamine and skunk by members of some transnational drug trafficking organisations through the Lagos International Airport and courier companies in Lagos have again been thwarted by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, who intercepted the illicit drug consignments concealed in different items.
At the Lagos airport, NDLEA operatives on 12th September intercepted an intending passenger going to Oman, Ugwu Peter Tochukwu, while trying to board a Qatar Airways flight. Upon thoroughly searching his luggage, 7.50 kilograms of skunk were concealed inside crayfish mixed with dry bitter leaf.
In the same vein, a statement by the spokesman of the Agency, Mr Femi Babafemi, said, NDLEA officers of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigations attached to some courier companies also intercepted Dubai-bound 2.9 kilograms of skunk and 14 grams of methamphetamine concealed in bags of semovita and soles of ladies’ high heel shoes respectively.
In Imo state, the statement said, operatives on patrol along the Aba-Owerri expressway on 13th September intercepted five pregnant teenage girls suspected to be victims of child trafficking used as a baby factory. They were picked up while being relocated from their hideout in the Naze area of Owerri to the Ikenegbu area of the state capital.
The victims include Chioma Emmanuel, 15, Uma Faith, 15, Divine Adimonye, 17, Opara Gift, 15, and Amarachi Mbata, 16. Their statements claimed they didn’t know the men who impregnated them. The Imo state command of the Agency has since been directed to hand them over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigations.
While two suspects, Moses Akowe, and Sunday Gabriel, were arrested with 227.1kgs of cannabis on 11th September at Ikebe village, Ankpa LGA, Kogi state, a female suspect, Bilikisu Salako, was nabbed with 108kgs of the same substance on 16th September in Ifo area of Ogun state.
