NDLEA arrests 6 drug kingpins, recovers multibillion-naira cocaine

The operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have destroyed two major cross-border drug trafficking syndicates with cocaine and opioids worth billions of naira recovered from them while six leaders of the cartels were arrested.

The syndicates, which comprise Nigerians based in the Mubi area of Adamawa State, Onitsha in Anambra State, and Lagos State as well as Cameroonians came under NDLEA radar after they were suspected of being major suppliers of drugs to terror groups operating in Nigeria and Cameroon.

The NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday, November 10, 2024.

Babafemi identified the arrested leaders of the syndicates as Ibrahim Bawuro, Najib Ibrahim, Ibrahim Umar, Nelson Udechukwu Anayo, Ezeh Amaechi Martin, and Adejumo Elijah Ishola.

Babafemi said the intelligence gathered revealed that some psychoactive substances including tramadol were often sourced by Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib from a notorious drug dealer in Onitsha, Anayo, and thereafter packed and concealed in vehicles in the premises of Martin, an associate of Anayo.

He stated: “The duo of Ibrahim Bawuro and Ibrahim Najib will thereafter transport the drugs from Onitsha to Yola and subsequently to other parts of the North and Cameroon in specially constructed false compartments of vehicles, which travel from the East to the North at night.

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“On 7th October 2024, Bawuro and Najib were trailed from Onitsha where they had gone to buy another consignment and eventually arrested in Taraba the following day 8th October while a total of 276,500 pills of tramadol were recovered from a Toyota Avensis saloon car marked DKA 57 TT, which they abandoned on the Jalingo-Yola expressway when they noticed NDLEA operatives were on their trail.”

The NDLEA spokesman noted that follow-up operations were subsequently carried out in Delta and Anambra States where Martin and Anayo were arrested by the anti-narcotic operatives.

Babafemi disclosed that another 37-year-old leader of a different syndicate, Adejumo Elijah Ishola, was arrested by NDLEA operatives at Seme border in Lagos on his way from Ghana with 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and 600grams of synthetic cannabis on Tuesday, November 5.

He noted that this followed months of intelligence and surveillance on the suspect’s cross-border criminal activities.

The Star