Oluwaseyi Shaba The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a Vietnam-bound businessman, Paul Okwuy Mbadugha, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja after he tested positive for ingestion of cocaine. PUNCH Metro learnt in a statement on Sunday by the Director, Media & Advocacy, NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, that the 54-year-old suspect was intercepted at the boarding gate of the Abuja airport on August 12, 2024, during the outward clearance of the Qatar Airways flight QR 1432 to Hanoi, Vietnam via Doha. After four days under excretion observation, Mbadugha ingested a total of 88 wraps of the illicit drug with a gross weight of 1.
710 kilograms. According to the NDLEA, Mbadugha, in his statement, claimed that he is a Lagos-based businessman and that he was given the cocaine pellets to swallow by a friend in the Isolo area of Lagos State for onward delivery in Vietnam for a fee of $2,000. Babafemi also disclosed that several arrests and busts had been made by the agency in various locations across Nigeria.
At the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, 800g of cannabis concealed in noodles destined for Congo was intercepted while a large consignment of Loud (a synthetic cannabis strain) from Canada was recovered, weighing 65.80kg and a suspect, Desalu Taophic Temitope, who claimed he was promised $10,000 for the delivery, was arrested. At the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, 892,400 bottles of codeine-based syrup worth N6,246,800,000 were recovered from f.