- Safiu Kehinde
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a 30-year-old Brazilian lady, Ms. Ingrid Rosa Benevides has been arrested over possession of N3 billion worth of heroin concealed in a factory sealed coffee pack.
Benevides was apprehended at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja upon her arrival on a Qatar Airways flight QR1431.
As disclosed in a statement issued on Sunday by the NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, the suspect who works as a private security officer in Brazil was arrested at the Abuja airport on Friday following processed intelligence.
After her arrest, a search was conducted on her two checked-in bags where 21 factory-sealed packets of Brazilian coffee were found.
When the coffee bags were opened, rather than containing the beverage, what was found inside were white substances that later tested positive for heroin weighing a total of 30.09 kilograms.
This, according to Babafemi, marked the single largest heroin seizure at the Abuja airport.
During her preliminary interview, the suspect claimed she brought the white heroin consignment under the guise of coming to Nigeria for holidays.
Prior to Friday’s arrest of the Brazilian lady, NDLEA operatives recorded similar arrest at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, (MMIA) Ikeja, Lagos, on Tuesday.
The operatives intercepted two passengers: Adediran Adedoyin and Afatakpa Ochuko who were heading to Istanbul, Turkey, aboard a Turkish Airlines flight with a total of 3,990 pills of tapentadol 250mg and tramaking 225mg concealed in food items packed in their bags.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Marine Command of the Agency in the early hours of Thursday 22nd January intercepted a wooden boat loaded with 44 jumbo bags of Ghana Loud, a strain of cannabis weighing 1,848 kilograms at the Jakande beach in Lekki Lagos.
The shipment had barely arrived from Ghana when NDLEA officers acting on credible intelligence stormed the location around 1am, recovered the consignment and the boat.
In Kano and Kaduna, two suspects: Aminu Ali Baba, 20, and Abdulrasheed Abubakar, 28, were on Friday arrested by NDLEA operatives in connection with the seizure of two bags containing 140 packets of explosives heading to Kano and Kaduna.
The bags were intercepted in a commercial bus along Kaduna- Zaria highway, Zaria.
While Aminu was arrested at Karota park in Kano, Abdulrasheed WAS nabbed at Mando park in Kaduna in swift follow-up operations.