NDLEA arrests 9 kingpins, uncovers drugs hidden in flight boarding passes

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has smashed multiple drug syndicates and arrested no fewer than nine kingpins after uncovering a new trafficking method involving illicit substances hidden inside what looked like ordinary flight boarding passes.

NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, disclosed the development in a statement posted on X on Sunday.

According to the agency, the latest breakthrough exposed a network using boarding cards and aviation-linked cargo to move cocaine, methamphetamine, cannabis strains, and other dangerous narcotics across states and international routes.

Babafemi said officers on 18 November arrested two members of a trafficking syndicate in Onitsha, Anambra State after they arrived to claim a shipment containing 5.40kg of meth, 10.70kg of Loud, 16g of cocaine, phenacetin, methcathinone, and caffeine. The substances were concealed inside pressure machine cylinders imported from South Africa.

The first suspect, 30-year-old Ebulue Lotanwa Uzochukwu, was picked up at a logistics company, followed shortly by the arrest of 51-year-old South Africa returnee Christopher Michael Ndibuisi.

The consignment had earlier been intercepted at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, arriving on a Tag-Angola flight on 13 November through the import shed.

In a related operation at the Lagos airport on 20 November, operatives uncovered a brake servo auto part stuffed with 48 pellets and a block of cocaine (2.3kg) heading to Gabon. A freight agent, Ameh Solomon, was arrested, leading to the capture of auto parts dealer Nwafor Tochukwu Boniface at the Trade Fair Complex.

NDLEA also intercepted a trailer conveying 4,700kg of skunk in Kabba, Kogi State on 17 November. Three suspects were arrested, while a follow-up operation in Jos, Plateau State, led to the arrest of the kingpin, Marcus Danladi Dan Mangu.

A couple, Onun Okoi Okpotum (55) and Itam Okoi Okpotum (52), were arrested in Cross River State where officers recovered 362 jumbo bags of skunk weighing 4,706kg from their Ugep warehouse.

In Edo State, two young women, Praise Nwogu (19) and Ebong Emem Oghosa (25), were apprehended in Benin City over online sales and distribution of drug-laced brownies.

NDLEA operatives in Enugu also intercepted a suspect transporting 10.1kg skunk, more than 105,000 tramadol pills, pentazocine injections, and 3,000 live ammunition rounds.

Further seizures included codeine-based syrup in Kebbi, opioids headed toward a Boko Haram enclave in Borno, and massive quantities of skunk and Colorado recovered in Lagos raids — including boarding passes stuffed with Colorado found on suspect Oluchi Celestine in Lekki.

Babafemi added that a joint operation with military support at Lagos Island’s notorious Peti drug enclave led to the recovery of 385kg of assorted narcotics.