Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency said it has seized more than 30 kilograms of heroin concealed in factory-sealed coffee packs and arrested a Brazilian woman at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi said in a statement Sunday that the suspect, 30-year-old Ingrid Benevides, was intercepted Friday after arriving in Abuja aboard Qatar Airways flight QR1431. He said the arrest followed intelligence-led surveillance.
A search of Benevides’ two checked-in bags revealed 21 factory-sealed packs of Brazilian coffee which, on inspection, were found to contain a white substance that tested positive for heroin. The drugs weighed 30.09 kilograms and were valued at more than 3 billion naira, Babafemi said, describing it as the largest heroin seizure ever recorded at the Abuja airport.
Babafemi said Benevides, who identified herself as a private security officer in Brazil, told investigators she brought the drugs into Nigeria under the guise of coming for a holiday.
In a related operation, NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on Jan. 20 intercepted two passengers, Adediran Adedoyin and Afatakpa Ochuko, who were en route to Istanbul, Turkey. Babafemi said the suspects were found with 3,990 pills of tapentadol 250mg and tramadol 225mg concealed in food items packed in their luggage.
Elsewhere in Lagos, Babafemi said NDLEA officers from the Marine Command, acting on intelligence, intercepted a wooden boat loaded with 44 jumbo bags of cannabis, commonly known as Ghana Loud, weighing 1,848 kilograms. The seizure was made around 1 a.m. on Jan. 22 at Jakande Beach in Lekki, shortly after the shipment arrived from Ghana.
In Kaduna State, Babafemi said two suspects — Aminu Baba, 20, and Abdulrasheed Abubakar, 28 — were arrested following the interception of two bags containing 140 packets of explosives. The bags were seized from a commercial bus along the Kaduna–Zaria highway, while the suspects were later arrested in follow-up operations in Kano and Kaduna.
Babafemi said additional intelligence-led operations across the country led to the arrest of several suspects and the seizure of large quantities of illicit drugs, including tramadol, skunk, pentazocine injections, cannabis seeds and codeine syrup, in states such as Borno, Niger, Ekiti, Edo, Kano, Oyo, Benue, Lagos, Delta and Ondo.
He said the arrests and seizures were part of NDLEA’s sustained efforts to disrupt drug trafficking networks, curb cross-border smuggling and cut off the supply of illicit drugs to criminal and terrorist groups.
