The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, announced that an Onitsha, Anambra state based-businessman, Ibeanusi Solomon Nosike, has excreted 68 wraps of cocaine after 12 days of excretion observation following his arrest at the local wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja, Lagos.

According to NDLEA, the 36-year-old Ibeanusi was arrested in the early hours of Thursday, August 8, 2024 at the old domestic terminal of the Lagos airport while attempting to board the first flight out of Lagos to Abuja.

The agency said he was scheduled to join a Qatar Airways flight to Vietnam at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, NAIA, Abuja at about 10am same day.

Femi Babafemi, Director, Media & Advocacy, NDLEA Headquarters, announced this on Sunday in Abuja.

Babafemi claimed that the suspect who came under NDLEA surveillance following intelligence had arrived Lagos from his base in Onitsha, Anambra state the previous day, August 7, and lodged in a hotel where he swallowed the 68 wraps of cocaine before heading to the airport for a 6:30am flight the following morning.

The spokesperson disclosed that the suspect was thereafter intercepted by NDLEA operatives who moved him into excretion observation where he spent the next 12 days excreting the cocaine pellets weighing 1.282 kilograms.

Another Vietnam-bound businessman, 54-year-old Paul Okwuy Mbadugha had been arrested by NDLEA operatives at the Abuja airport on Monday 12th August 2024 during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight QR 1432 to Hanoi, Vietnam via Doha after he tested positive to ingestion of cocaine. After four days under observation, Mbadugha egested a total of 88 wraps of the illicit drug with a gross weight of 1.710 kilograms.

Babafemi also announced the arrest of another Onitsha based businessman, Aligbo Chukwudi Jacob by NDLEA operatives following the seizure of a consignment of 1.20kg cannabis concealed in a package going to Dubai, UAE.

He said the NDLEA’s operatives at the MMIA Strategic Command of the Agency had intercepted the shipment at the export shed of the Lagos airport while investigations revealed the cargo was sent through a courier company in Onitsha, adding that Aligbo was eventually arrested in Onitsha on Saturday 17th August after series of follow up operations.

Meanwhile, operatives of a Special Operations Unit in NDLEA have arrested five cross-border female drug traffickers at the Seme border while on their way back to Lagos from Ghana.