The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has intercepted illicit drugs worth more than ₦6.2 billion in separate operations at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
Among the seizures was 47,200 tablets of captagon, popularly referred to as the “Jihadi drug”, concealed inside locally made bathing soap.
The agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.
According to him, the captagon shipment was seized on August 22 following the arrest of 49-year-old cross-border drug trafficker, Akinbile Kazeem Aikins, who arrived in Lagos from Accra, Ghana, aboard an African World Airlines flight.
NDLEA operatives reportedly became suspicious after searching a carton containing “Ghana Soap”, leading to the discovery of the concealed tablets valued at more than ₦1.5 billion.
Investigators said Aikins claimed the consignment was destined for northern Nigeria.
In another operation, NDLEA officers recovered 3,900,030 tablets of Tramaking 225mg and Tapentadol 250mg, weighing 2,787.40kg and estimated at over ₦4.6 billion.
The drugs were found in four abandoned consignments at the airport’s import shed. Three contained 900,000 tablets of Tramaking brought from Bangladesh through RwandAir, while the fourth contained 3,000,030 tablets of Tapentadol shipped from Amsterdam through Qatar Airways.
The consignments were placed under surveillance after nobody came forward to claim them and were later retrieved during a joint examination involving the NDLEA, Nigeria Customs Service and other stakeholders.
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Elsewhere, the agency arrested a 31-year-old returnee from the United Kingdom in Lekki, Lagos, after he allegedly attempted to collect 3.350kg of Loud, a potent cannabis strain.
NDLEA operatives also recovered cocaine, heroin and Colorado cannabis from a fireproof safe during a raid in Port Harcourt, while hundreds of kilogrammes of cannabis and more than 176,000 opioid pills were seized in Ondo and Delta states.
NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), commended the officers involved and urged them to sustain efforts against traffickers using unconventional methods to conceal illicit drugs.
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