At the Apapa harbor in Lagos, agents of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency seized 2,750,000 Tramadol 225mg tablets weighing 1,650 kg with a street value of N1,375,000,000. The cargo, which was contained in 55 cartons of the Tramadol kinds Tapentadol and Carisoprodol, was reportedly confiscated on Saturday, July 30, during the assessment of a container with the tracking number SUDU 7538656. This comes after similar efforts by anti-narcotic officers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, thwarted attempts by drug traffickers to export a variety of psychoactive substances to London, the United Kingdom, Dubai, and the United Arab Emirates through the Lagos airport in the previous week, leading to the arrest of at least five suspects in connection with the attempts so far.
According to a statement from the anti-drug agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, on Monday, 25th of July, a passenger named Ms. Ebhodaghei Osenemeshen was intercepted during the outward clearance of passengers flying on Rwanda Air via Kigali to Dubai. Tramadol 225mg packets were found in her suitcase, hidden inside gari, a product made from cassava that was mixed with other items. However, she asserted that the suitcase had been provided to her by a person with whom she had spent the night before traveling to the airport to assist in delivering it to a different person in Dubai. The next day, Tuesday, 26th of July, at the SAHCO export shed, 50 blocks of cannabis sativa weighing a combined 27.1kg were found hidden inside a sizable shipment of crayfish headed for London, UK as part of a consolidated cargo. The same day, while trying to board a Rwanda Air trip to the UAE via Kigali, Rachel Emebradu, a female traveller destined for Dubai, was detained with 1.8 kg of cannabis concealed inside bitter leaf in her luggage. The mother of one, who is from Oghara in Delta State’s Ethiope West Local Government Area, claimed that before deciding to go to Dubai to boost her clothes company, she sold men’s goods. She alleged that her ex-boyfriend, who resides in Dubai, asked her to deliver a suitcase carrying an illegal substance and some food.
In a similar line, workers at the airport’s NAHCO import shed evacuated cartons of khat leaf on Saturday, 30th of July, totaling 51.50kg in weight. Earlier, a Royal Air Maroc jet had brought the shipment in from Sierra Leone.
