NDLEA arrests six drug barons, recovers cocaine, opioids
Samuel Omotere
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency says it has smashed two major cross-border drug trafficking syndicates and arrested six out of the cartel’s leaders.
It noted that cocaine, opioids worth billions of naira were recovered from the kingpins in different parts of the country.
The NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi disclosed this in a statement released on Sunday, stating that the syndicates are made up of Cameroonians and Nigerians in Mubi, Adamawa state; Onitsha, Anambra
state, and Lagos state.
Babafemi said these drug barons were suspected to be the mainn traffickers of illicit drugs to terrorists operating in Nigeria and Cameroon, so they were clamped on after due surveillance.
“Leaders of the syndicates so far arrested include: Ibrahim Bawuro, Najib Ibrahim, Ibrahim Umar, Nelson Udechukwu Anayo, Ezeh Amaechi Martin and Adejumo Elijah Ishola.
“Intelligence gathered revealed that some psychoactive substances including tramadol were often sourced by Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib from a notorious drug dealer in Onitsha: Nelson Udechukwu Anayo and thereafter packed and concealed in vehicles in the premises of Ezeh Amaechi Martin, an associate of Udechukwu.
“The duo of Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib will thereafter transport the drugs from Onitsha to Yola and subsequently to other parts of the North and Cameroon in specially constructed false compartments of
vehicles, which travel from the East to the North at night.
He said earlier last month, the agency trailed two of them, Bawuro and Naijib, from Onitsha where they got their consignment and arrested them in Taraba with 276,500 pills of tramadol found in the Toyota
Avensis car on Jalingo-Yola expressway they abandoned after noticing the operatives.
Babayemi also revealed that Amaechi Martin and Udechukwu Nelson Anayo of the same syndicate were also nabbed in Delta and Anambra afterwards. Adejumo Elijah Ishola, the leader of a different syndicate
was arrested on Tuesday with cocaine and cannabis.
“Follow up operations were subsequently carried out in Delta and Anambra states where Ezeh Amaechi Martin and Udechukwu Nelson Anayo were arrested by operatives of the NDLEA Directorate of Intelligence, which coordinated the whole effort with their counterparts in Taraba, Adamawa, Delta and Anambra.
“Another leader of a different syndicate, Adejumo Elijah Ishola, 37, was arrested by operatives of a special operation unit of the Agency on Tuesday 5th November at Seme border in Lagos on his way from Ghana
with 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and 600grams of synthetic cannabis. This followed months of intelligence and surveillance on his cross-border criminal activities.”
