The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a South African woman accused of using her three-year-old son as cover to smuggle heroin into Nigeria, while also apprehending a former commercial motorcyclist who allegedly excreted 100 wraps of methamphetamine and seizing cannabis valued at over ₦10.3 billion at the Apapa seaport.
According to a statement issued on Sunday by the NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, the South African suspect, Jessica Ann Will, 38, was arrested on Monday, July 6, at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, during the inward clearance of passengers aboard a Qatar Airways flight from Doha.
Babafemi said operatives recovered 14 large blocks of heroin weighing 5.75 kilogrammes concealed in the suspect’s luggage after she initially denied travelling with any checked-in baggage.
He explained that NDLEA officers established ownership of the bags by matching the baggage tags with the claim tags attached to her passport, after which she admitted the luggage belonged to her.
The spokesman said intelligence gathered during the investigation indicated that the suspect allegedly belongs to a transnational drug trafficking network operating along the Cambodia-South Africa route with her husband and alleged accomplice, Jan Coenraad De Jager, who is based in Cambodia.
In a separate operation, Babafemi said NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, arrested 48-year-old Onyechere Daniel Chinadu, a former commercial motorcycle rider, after he arrived from Madagascar via Addis Ababa on an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
According to him, officers initially recovered 87 wraps of methamphetamine concealed in the suspect’s backpack.
“The suspect claimed he had worked as an okada rider in the Oke-Afa area of Lagos for 15 years before he was recruited into drug trafficking by a Uganda-based friend,” Babafemi said.
He added that the suspect confessed to ingesting additional pellets of methamphetamine in Uganda before travelling to Madagascar to deliver the consignment but was denied entry by immigration authorities there.
“His sponsor subsequently rerouted him to Lagos, where he was arrested. Because he could not state the exact number of pellets he had ingested, he was placed under excretion observation for three days,” Babafemi stated.
He said the suspect eventually excreted 13 additional pellets, bringing the total recovery to 100 wraps of methamphetamine weighing 1.715 kilogrammes.
At the Apapa seaport in Lagos, Babafemi disclosed that NDLEA officers, working jointly with the Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies, intercepted 8,287 bags of Canadian Loud, a potent strain of cannabis, weighing 4,143.5 kilogrammes with an estimated street value of over ₦10.3 billion.
He said the consignment was discovered during a joint examination of a container imported from Canada after weeks of intelligence-driven tracking by the Agency’s Maritime Intelligence Unit in collaboration with the Apapa Strategic Command.
Babafemi also revealed that NDLEA operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation (DOGI) thwarted an attempt to export 2.5 kilogrammes of skunk, another strain of cannabis, concealed inside a gas compressor destined for Cyprus through a Lagos-based courier company.
Beyond enforcement operations, the agency said it sustained its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) campaign with sensitisation programmes in schools, worship centres, workplaces and communities across the country.
Among the outreach activities were lectures delivered at Nnodo Secondary School, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State; Government Girls Secondary School, Sabon Gida, Sharada, Kano State; Royal Jesuit College, Agbado Ekiti; and Community Secondary School, Idofa, Ogun State.
Babafemi said the leadership of NDLEA’s Zone 14 Command also paid a WADA advocacy visit to Rivers State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, at the Government House in Port Harcourt.
He added that the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig.-Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), commended officers of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation, the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Maritime Intelligence Unit and Apapa Commands for the successful operations.
According to Babafemi, Marwa praised the officers for balancing drug supply reduction efforts with sustained public enlightenment under the WADA initiative and urged them to remain steadfast in the agency’s campaign against illicit drug trafficking nationwide.
