NDLEA Intercepts ‘Jihadi Drug’ Worth N6.2bn at Lagos Airport, Arrests Cross-Border Kingpin
A carton of ordinary-looking locally made bathing soap turned out to be anything but ordinary when operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) discovered thousands of Captagon pills—dubbed the “Jihadi drug”—hidden inside it at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
The discovery has exposed what the agency described as a cross-border drug trafficking operation involving a 49-year-old kingpin, Akinbile Kazeem Aikins, who arrived in Lagos from Accra, Ghana, aboard an African World Airlines flight.
According to NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, in a statement, the suspect was arrested on August 22 after operatives searched his carton containing the locally made bathing soap popularly known as Ghana Soap.
Inside the soap, they found 47,200 Captagon pills, with an estimated street value of more than N1.5 billion.
Captagon is a stimulant associated with illicit drug trafficking in parts of the Middle East and has gained notoriety as the so-called “Jihadi drug” because of reports linking its use to some militant groups.
NDLEA said Aikins told investigators that he was expected to deliver the consignment to an unidentified destination in northern Nigeria.
But the airport operation did not end there.
In a separate development, NDLEA operatives recovered more than 3.9 million tablets of Tramaking and Tapentadol, weighing about 2,787 kilogrammes and valued at over N4.6 billion.
The drugs were discovered in four abandoned consignments at the MMIA import shed.
NDLEA said three of the consignments contained 900,000 Tramaking tablets that arrived from Bangladesh aboard RwandAir, while another consignment contained 3,000,030 Tapentadol tablets shipped from Amsterdam on Qatar Airways.
The abandoned consignments were retrieved on August 28 following a joint examination involving NDLEA, the Nigeria Customs Service and other relevant stakeholders.
US returnee arrested over imported cannabis
In another operation in Lagos, NDLEA operatives also arrested a 31-year-old United States returnee, Sowunmi David Oludotun, after he allegedly showed up in Lekki to collect 3.35 kilogrammes of Loud, a potent strain of cannabis imported from the United Kingdom.
The series of interceptions, according to the anti-narcotics agency, highlights the continuing attempts by international drug networks to move dangerous substances into Nigeria through legitimate-looking cargo and international travel routes.
From FRCN
