The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has made shocking revelations about the quantity and monetary value of the illicit substances and drugs they intercepted and seized
NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, in a statement released on Sunday September 1, 2024 made shocking revelations about the quantity of illicit drugs/substances the agency seized in recent times.
According to him, NDLEA has recently intercepted a total of 31,124, 600 pills of tramadol (225mg) and bottles of codeine-based syrup worth over N17, 932, 200, 000 going by the street value.
The seizure were made at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers state and Tincan seaport in Lagos State, anchored on intelligence gathering by the agency recently.
In his exact words, “The seizures were made following intelligence processed by the agency on the movement of the shipments from their port of origin in India, leading to a demand for a 100 per cent joint examination of the watch-listed containers with the Nigerian Customs Service and other sister security agencies“.
The seized illicit items include 350,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup, which were recovered from two containers at Tincan port in Lagos on August 29 and 30, 2024.
Further, each of these two containers contained about 175,000 bottles of the opioid. And at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, NDLEA operatives had to intercept a total of about 447 cartons of tramadol (225mg) containing 29 840,000 pills of the opioid as well as 380,000 bottles of codeine syrup from three containers, precisely on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
The tramadol shipments is said to have came under different brand names, like the Royal Tapetadol, Carisoprodol 225mg and Royal Tramadol Hydrochloride 225mg.
The agency didn’t stop there, as the following day, another set of three containers under the watch list of the NDLEA were subjected to joint examination, during which a total of 3,030 cartons of codeine syrup containing 554,600 bottles of the opioid were recovered as well.
Bringing it to a total of number of codeine seized at Onne, Rivers and Tincan in Lagos to 1,284,600 bottles which is said to be worth about N8,992,200,000.00 in street value while the combined seizure of tramadol stood at 29, 840,000 pills valued at N8,940,000,000.00.
On August 27, the agency arrested one Eze Emekan Don at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Rivers State, while attempting to board a Cronos airline flight to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, while carrying about 1,490 pills of tramadol, which was neatly concealed and packaged as cosmetics of different brands inside his travelling luggage.
Then on August 26, the agency arrested one Mustapha Ibrahim along Orchid Road, Ajah Lagos State, with about 1,122 kilograms of cannabis. Then about 816kg of the same psychoactive substance belonging to a suspect at large was equally recovered from the same location on the same day.
Then in Niger State, NDLEA had on same August 26 arrested one Friday Gabriel along the Minna-Suleja road with about 1,900 capsules of tramadol, 300 bottles of codeine syrup and 600 packets of exol-5 tablets.
Then on Saturday August 31st in Bauchi State along the Bauchi-Gombe road, the agency arrested two suspects identified as Garba Muhammed, 35, and Usman Yakubu Shehu, 31, while moving illicit substance; 308 blocks of cannabis weighing 246.4kg, concealed in a false compartment of a J5 bus.
