It was meant to be a lucrative deal. Notwithstanding the illegality of such business, the offer was tempting.

For Charles Uwagbale, a notorious drug kingpin who specializes in sponsoring young Nigerians to traffic Class A drugs to Europe, especially Italy, he has recruited an Italy-based Uju Dominic (35) for the deal.

The deal was for Dominic to come to Nigeria and ingest 100 pellets of cocaine on Friday 21st July and return to Italy on Saturday 22nd July.

True to plan, upon his arrival in Nigeria, Dominic, the courier, was lodged in Golden Heaven Hotel located at Enoma street off Ago-Palace way, Okota, Isolo, Lagos where Uwagbale brought 93 wraps of the Class A drug for him to swallow at about 23:45p.m. Friday night.

The 48-year-old drug kingpin, Uwagbale, was preparing the recruited courier to swallow 93 pellets of cocaine meant for distribution in Italy when NDLEA operatives who have been on their trail following credible intelligence stormed their hotel room, arrested both and recovered the drug exhibits with a total weight of 1.427 kilograms.

Operatives of the Lagos state Command of the Agency who made the arrest and seizure had on Thursday 20th July raided Akala in Mushin area of the state where they recovered 37.5kg cannabis from the home of a fleeing suspect.

Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives have intercepted 98 cartons containing 5,122,900 pills of Tramadol 225mg valued at N3.7 billion.

The illicit drug shipped to Nigeria through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, was intercepted by men of the Nigeria Customs Service and NDLEA officers at the airport and at the DHL cargo warehouse.

Femi Babafemi, the Director of Media and Advocacy of NDLEA, stated that preliminary findings revealed that the consignments were imported from India and Pakistan, while some of the seized consignments had Freetown, Sierra Leone as final destination.

The Star