Two drug kingpins excrete 125 wraps of heroin at Lagos, PH airports

Two drug kingpins have excreted 125 wraps of heroin at Lagos and Port Harcourt airports.

The drug lords had attempted to smuggle into Nigeria consignments of heroin through the Port Harcourt International Airport and the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, but they were foiled by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA.

One of the kingpins who uses dual identities to aid his crossborder movements has a Nigerian passport with his original name: Onyekwonike Elochuckwu Sylvanus, 30, and that of Sierra Leone with a different name: Kargbo Mohamed Foday.

Sylvanus was intercepted by NDLEA officers with his Sierra Leonean passport on Sunday 2nd February 2025 at the Port Harcourt airport, Rivers State during the inward clearance of passengers on Qatar Airways flight from Doha through Abuja to Port Harcourt.

In a statement issued on Sunday, February 9, 2025, by the Director, Media and Advocacy of the NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, the agency said

the drug lord was subsequently taken for body scan which confirmed he ingested illicit drugs and thereafter placed under excretion observation during which he expelled a total of 62 wraps of heroin in five excretions, weighing 1.348 kilograms.

Investigation reveals Onyekwonike Elochuckwu Sylvanus (alias Kargbo Mohamed Foday) alternates his two identities for different drug trafficking missions between Thailand, Pakistan, Iran and West African countries. He claimed to have gone full-time into the illicit drug trade in 2017 when his clothing and shoe business went down.

NDLEA nabs India-bound nursing student with 76 wraps of cocaine

The second kingpin, James Herbert Chinoso, 48, was arrested by NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport on Saturday 1st February upon his arrival from Madagascar via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on an Ethiopian Airlines flight. After a body scan confirmed illicit drug in his system, he was placed under excretion observation during which he egested 63 wraps of heroin with a total weight of 909 grams.

Chinoso had left Lagos to Madagascar on 26th January 2025 and returned via Addis Ababa after spending a week. He claimed to have gone into the criminal trade after his phone accessories business in Liberia collapsed.

Two parcels of 2.82 kilograms of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis imported from the United States with Lagos as destination were equally intercepted by NDLEA operatives of the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation, DOGI, at a courier firm in Lagos on Thursday 6th February.

In another interdiction operation same day but in a different logistics company in Lagos, anti-narcotics officers intercepted 80 ampoules of pentazocine injection 225 grams concealed in cartons heading to Canada.