- Safiu Kehinde
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has bursted two major cross-border drug trafficking syndicates with cocaine and opioids worth billions of naira recovered from them.
This was confirmed in a statement issued by the Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday in Abuja.
He also disclosed that six leaders of the cartels were arrested in different parts of the country.
According to Babafemi, the arrest came after months of intelligence gathering and painstaking surveillance by the operatives of the NDLEA.
He said that the syndicates comprise of Nigerians based in Mubi, Adamawa state; Onitsha, Anambra state, and Lagos state as well as Cameroonians.
He also said that they all came under NDLEA radar after they were suspected of being major suppliers of drugs to terror groups operating in Nigeria and Cameroon.
Babafemi named the leaders of the syndicates so far arrested as Ibrahim Bawuro, Najib Ibrahim, Ibrahim Umar, Nelson Udechukwu, Ezeh Amaechi, and Adejumo Ishola.
According to him, 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.
“They would thereafter be packed and concealed in vehicles in the premises of Ezeh Amaechi, 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.
“On Oct. 7, Bawuro and Najib were trailed from Onitsha where they had gone to buy another consignment and eventually arrested in Taraba the following day, Oct. 8.
“A total of 276,500 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Toyota Avensis saloon car marked DKA 57 TT, which they abandoned on the Jalingo-Yola expressway when they noticed NDLEA operatives were on their trail.
“Follow up operations were subsequently carried out in Delta and Anambra states where Ezeh Amaechi and Nelson Udechukwu were arrested by operatives of the NDLEA Directorate of Intelligence.
“The operatives coordinated the whole effort with their counterparts in Taraba, Adamawa, Delta and Anambra respectively,” Babafemi said.
He further stated that another leader of a different syndicate, Ishola Adejumo, 37, was arrested by operatives of a special operation unit of the agency on Tuesday Nov. 5 at Seme border in Lagos.
Babafemi said the suspect was arrested on his way from Ghana with 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and 600 grams of synthetic cannabis after months of intelligence and surveillance on his cross-border criminal activities.
Meanwhile, the NDLEA commands nationwide have continued their War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation lectures and advocacy visits to worship centres, schools, workplaces, palaces of traditional rulers and communities.
The NDLEA Chairman, retired Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa has applauded the personnel and their compatriots in all the commands across the country for intensifying the WADA sensitisation lectures and advocacy messages to every part of their areas of responsibility.