LAGOS — The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has intercepted over N6.2 billion worth of illicit drugs at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, including captagon popularly known as the ‘Jihadi drug’ hidden inside soap. A 49-year-old cross-border suspect, Akinbile Kazeem Aikins, was arrested on Saturday, August 22, after arriving from Accra on an African World Airlines flight. NDLEA officers found 47,200 captagon pills, valued at more than N1.5 billion, concealed in blocks of “Ghana Soap” in his luggage. The suspect told investigators the consignment was meant for the North. This is the first major captagon seizure since NDLEA’s initial interception at Apapa Port in 2021.
In a separate operation, NDLEA recovered 3,900,030 tablets of Tramaking 225mg and Tapentadol 250mg weighing 2,787.40kg from four unclaimed shipments at the MMIA import shed. The drugs, worth over N4.6 billion, arrived via RwandAir from Bangladesh and Qatar Airways from Amsterdam and were retrieved on Friday, August 28, after a joint inspection with Customs. Also on August 19, a 31-year-old US returnee, Sowunmi David Oludotun, was arrested in Lekki for attempting to collect 3.35kg of Loud cannabis imported from the UK.
Outside Lagos, NDLEA operatives raided a notorious drug den in Abuja Down/Up, Port Harcourt on August 25 and broke open a fireproof safe containing 316g of cocaine, 237g of Colorado and 10g of heroin. In Ondo, five suspects were arrested with 1,069kg of skunk between August 26 and 28, while Delta commands seized over 176,000 opioid pills in separate operations. NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa, rtd, lauded the teams and directed sustained pressure on traffickers now using household items like soap to move drugs.
