The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested two Nigerians dwelling in Europe after they allegedly swallowed 200 wraps of cocaine weighing 3.46kg whereas making an attempt to board a flight from Abuja to Paris, France.
The suspects, Aliocus Godian Odife and Sam Blackborn, had been arrested on Wednesday, 28 October, throughout passenger clearance for an Air France flight at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, mentioned in a press release on Sunday {that a} physique scan revealed international objects within the stomachs of the two males, who had been travelling on flight AF 832.
Mr Odife, who works in a manufacturing facility in France, had arrived in Nigeria on 21 October for a brief vacation. According to NDLEA, he admitted swallowing 110 wraps of cocaine, which he later excreted underneath remark. The wraps weighed 1.901 kg, the NDLEA mentioned.
His co-traveller, Mr Blackborn, was additionally discovered to have swallowed cocaine. The NDLEA mentioned he admitted ingesting 90 wraps, weighing 1.559kg, which he subsequently excreted.
The NDLEA acknowledged that laboratory checks confirmed that every one 200 wraps recovered from the lads contained cocaine.
The arrest brings again to thoughts the same incident in May 2024, when the company arrested a 48-year-old businessman on the Abuja airport as he ready to board a flight to Paris. A physique scan revealed that he had swallowed 111 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.603 kilogrammes.
In January 2025, one other businessman arrested on the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, underwent surgical procedure after some of the 81 cocaine pellets he had swallowed grew to become caught in his abdomen.
The newest arrests had been half of a sequence of operations during which the NDLEA seized medicine and arrested suspects in a number of states.
In Lagos, operatives intercepted two autos on Sunday, 25 October, following intelligence concerning the motion of skunk, a potent pressure of hashish, from Lagos Island to the mainland.
They recovered 537kg of the substance from a white Volkswagen LT 28 bus alongside Kudirat Abiola Way, Ikeja. Another staff intercepted a brown J5 bus alongside the Gbagada-Oshodi Expressway the identical day and seized 439 kilogrammes.
In Oyo (*200*), two males, Oguntona Nasiru, 46, and Soji Balogun, 47, had been arrested on Thursday, 29 October, whereas allegedly loading 554 kilogrammes of skunk right into a Volvo truck alongside Idere Road, Igboora.
The operation adopted an earlier seizure of 309.5kg of hashish, popularly often called Ghanaian Loud, allegedly linked to a drug supplier recognized as Omo Oba, who escaped arrest on 25 October.
In Kano (*200*), operatives raided a location within the Tsamiya space of Gezawa on Monday, 26 October, recovering 247,500 tablets of diazepam weighing 57.7 kilogrammes and 100,000 tablets of Exol-5 weighing 38.7kg.
Two days later, officers arrested Ziya’ulhaq Abdullahi, 35, and Garba Muhammed, 52, within the Dorayi space with 19,250 tablets of tramadol 225mg.
In Kaduna (*200*), NDLEA operatives arrested a girl, Aisha Isah, with 266 rounds of dwell AK-47 ammunition at a toll gate alongside the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway.
Another suspect, Ifeanyi Egwolonwu, 68, was arrested at Gwargwaje, Zaria, alongside the Zaria-Kano Expressway, with 2,770 ampoules of pentazocine injection, 100 ampoules of diazepam injection, 11,000 tablets of diazepam and 4,500 tablets of Exol-5.
In a separate raid within the Tashan Banke space, officers arrested seven suspects, together with Faisal Adamu, and recovered 178.85 kilogrammes of hashish, alongside portions of diazepam, tramadol, Exol-5 and pregabalin.
In Ondo (*200*), operatives raided hashish farms in Ijare Forest on Sunday, 25 October, arresting 4 suspects, together with Bassey Okon, 24; Abraham Edet, 20; and Oto Udo, 24. They recovered 16 luggage of processed hashish weighing 180kg.
In Edo (*200*), NDLEA operatives, working with troopers, raided Eko Camp in Ilushi, Esan South-East Local Government Area, on Wednesday, 28 October. They destroyed a hashish plantation overlaying 1.646 hectares, with an estimated yield of 4,115.53kg.
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A 50-year-old girl, Christiana Uboi, was arrested on the camp with 301kg of processed hashish. Officers additionally recovered one other 176 kilogrammes through the operation.
In Sokoto (*200*), operatives of the NDLEA Zone 7 Command arrested a 68-year-old man, Ibrahim Ayuba, with 236.6 kilogrammes of skunk on Saturday, 31 October.
The company mentioned its instructions additionally held drug consciousness campaigns in colleges, locations of worship, workplaces and communities underneath its War Against Drug Abuse initiative.
Among the faculties visited had been Obawole Grammar School II in Ojodu, Lagos; Nsukka High School in Enugu (*200*); Government Technical College, Dorayi Babba Rijiyar Zaki, in Kano (*200*); and Ajagbe Comprehensive High School in Iperu, Ogun (*200*).
The NDLEA chairman, Buba Marwa, counseled the officers concerned within the operations, significantly those that arrested the two cocaine couriers in Abuja.
He warned Nigerians dwelling overseas towards utilizing their international residence as cowl for drug trafficking, saying officers on the nation’s entry and exit factors remained vigilant.
Mr Marwa urged NDLEA personnel to maintain their operations towards drug trafficking and proceed public consciousness campaigns to discourage drug use.
Between 2021 and 2025, the company arrested 77,792 suspected drug offenders, secured 14,225 convictions and seized greater than 14.8 million kilogrammes of illicit medicine, based on figures launched by the NDLEA.
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