NDLEA Nabs Brazil Returnee with 60 Cocaine Wraps at MMIA, Declares Ex-Beauty Queen Wanted

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have arrested a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Ekene Theophilus at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos for ingesting 60 big wraps of cocaine.

The NDLEA spokesman Mr Femi Babafemi in a statement says, the suspect who was arrested during inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the D-Arrival Hall of the Lagos airport on Sunday 21^st January 2024, initially refused to undergo body scan, raising health concerns in a desperate bid to evade arrest.

When he was however offered other options, he accepted to be placed on excretion observation and shortly after he was ushered into NDLEA observatory, he excreted the first set of cocaine pellets, after which he expelled a total of 60 wraps of the class A drug weighing 1.279 kilograms in five excretions. 

In his statement, Udechukwu claimed he ingested the consignment in Brazil and was to discharge everything at the airport in Addis Ababa but could only excrete 15 pellets which he handed over to another member of his syndicate before his connecting flight to Nigeria was called.

In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Tuesday 23^rd January recovered a total of twelve (12) cartons of tramadol 225mg containing five hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred (599,900) pills weighing 385.40kg from an overstayed cargo at the SAHCO import shed of the Lagos airport after a joint examination with other agencies.

The tramadol consignment had come into the country in two batches on KLM Royal Dutch Airline flights from Karachi, Pakistan between 27^th July and 1^st August 2023. They were however placed under watch by NDLEA operatives since then.

Meanwhile, an ex-beauty queen, Ms. Aderinoye Queen Christmas also known as Ms. Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye has been declared wanted by the Agency after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos residence when NDLEA operatives raided her apartment at Oral estate, Lekki on Wednesday 24^th January following credible intelligence she deals in illicit substances. 

The suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation. 

Recovered from her home during the search witnessed by the estate officials include 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame among others.

Two members of an international drug trafficking syndicate: Sunday Michael Owoborode, 52, and Valentine Anene were arrested the next day Thursday 25^th January at Edu Orita, Ogun state where Valentine was being prepared to travel with some drugs to Qatar same day on board a Qatar airline flight from Lagos. 

At the time of their arrest, 1.8kg cannabis, electronic weighing scale and other illicit substances were found on them. In another interdiction operation by operatives in Lagos, a 50-year-old Sunday Adediran, was arrested on Wednesday 24^th January with 20kg cannabis sativa found in one of the rooms in his house at Mushin Olosha.