The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has announced the arrest of Mr. Ilonzeh Kingsley Onyebuchi and Mrs. Ilonzeh Roseline Nonyelum, who were allegedly traveling to India for medical care after consuming 184 wraps of cocaine weighing 3.322 kilograms, with 100 grams of the drug hidden in the woman’s private area.
The two suspects, according to NDLEA, were stopped on Tuesday at the Lagos airport as they attempted to board an Ethiopian Airlines trip to India.
Femi Babafemi, the NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, revealed this in a statement she released in Abuja.
The suspects’ travel paperwork listed them as a pair, according to the anti-narcotic agency, and a body scan by NDLEA agents proved they had used drugs.
They procured travel credentials with the same surname, according to the NDLEA, in order to bypass airport security checks, and one of the suspects said that she had been recruited in her church in Aba, Abia State.
The agency said,
“the suspect, Ilonzeh Roseline Nonyelum (aka Ngogbike Nkechi) stated further that she is a divorcee, and that Kingsley with whom she was travelling is not her husband but connected only for the purpose of the illicit drug business trip”.
NDLEA further stated that a further search on one of the suspects led to a discovery of a big size wrap of cocaine that weighed 100 grams inserted into her private part, confessing she was promised $5,000 upon successfully delivering the drug in India.
The second suspect, Kingsley, also claimed he was promised $2,000 after successfully delivering the drug in India and excreted 82 wraps of cocaine with a gross weight of 1.822kgs in five excretions, the agency claimed.
The statement added that Kingsley was previously arrested at the Abuja airport in March along with another suspect, Iro Elvis Uche, for ingesting 65 wraps of cocaine with a gross weight of 1.376kgs.
According to the statement, Kingsley was subsequently arraigned before Justice Zainab Abubakar of the Federal High Court Abuja but granted bail by the court pending the conclusion of his trial, noting he was still on the court bail when arrested for a similar offence in August.
In another development, the NDLEA operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation, DOGI, attached to courier companies in Lagos, have intercepted various quantities of Dextromethorphan mixed with heroin; Methamphetamine; Dimethyl Sulfone and Cannabis concealed in different objects going to Europe.
“272 grams of dextromethorphan mixed with heroin going to Greece were recovered from white neck beads; 665 grams of cannabis being shipped to Hong Kong were hidden in bars of Dudu Osun black bathing soap; with 261 grams of Dimethyl Sulfone going to New Zealand hidden in reels of weaving threads and 1.5kgs of Methamphetamine also going to New Zealand neatly packed in an MP3 player after all the parts were removed and the substance stuffed as replacement,” NDLEA stated.
Also, in Kano State, a woman and four men: Ladi Peter,47; Umar Salisu, 38; Ahmed Naheeb, 36; Ibrahim Umar, 42, and Musa Suleman, 43, were arrested in connection with the seizure of 977.7 kilograms of cannabis sativa from them by NDLEA operatives along Zaria-Kano road, Kwanar Dangora on Monday.
In the same vein, 2,445 kilograms of cannabis sativa were recovered from the warehouse of a fleeing suspect, Usman Nar, at Madinatu area of Jere LGA, Borno State, on Saturday.
No fewer than 57,450 pills of tramadol, rohypnol and exol-5, as well as 4,082 bottles of codeine-based syrup, were recovered from a suspect, Joseph Usman, in a commercial bus coming from Onitsha, Anambra State, to Abuja along Abaji-Abuja highway on Friday.
Reacting to the past week’s swaths of seizures and arrests, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) commended the officers and men of MMIA, Kano, FCT and Borno Commands of the Agency and those of DOGI for their diligence, vigilance and professionalism in the discharge of their responsibilities. He charged them and their compatriots across the country not to rest on their oars.