NDLEA Declares Abuja Drug Baron Wanted, Arrests Grandma, Pregnant Woman

THE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has declared an Abuja-based drug lord Ibrahim Momoh, alias ‘Ibrahim Bendel, wanted over drug-related offences.

The NDLEA, in a statement by its Director of Media and Advocacy Femi Babafemi, said Momoh escaped from prison custody to return to his criminal trade.

According to the statement, NDLEA operatives recovered 81 jumbo bags of cannabis weighing 1,278kgs during a raid on Momoh’s warehouse.

According to the statement, although the fleeing drug dealer is still at large, his warehouse keeper, 55-year-old Ghanaian Richard Forson Gordon, has been arrested.

“Ibrahim Momoh was first arrested on November 27, 2014 with the same substance weighing 385.1kgs, prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on 22nd of April, 2020 but escaped from jail after three months,” the statement added.

In another development, a 60-year-old grandmother and a pregnant woman were also arrested during interdiction operations in which 5,527.15 kilograms of methamphetamine and cannabis sativa, as well as 132,090 tablets of tramadol and 2,000 bottles of codeine, were recovered by the agency.

According to the NDLEA, the grandma, Ibinosun Sandra Esther, was arrested in Ibadan, Oyo State, in a follow-up operation following the seizure of a 5.5kg Loud variant of cannabis imported into the country from South Africa.

“The consignment, which she claimed was sent to her by her daughter, was concealed in two giant speakers as part of a consolidated cargo that arrived the NAHCO import shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja Lagos on board an Airpeace Airline flight.”

Also, NDLEA operatives, on Saturday, November 26, intercepted 1.4 kilograms of methamphetamine concealed inside custard tins packed among cosmetics and foodstuffs going to Brazil via Doha on a Qatar Airways flight.

A cargo agent, Salako Omolara Fausat, who brought the bag containing the illicit drug to the airport and an intending passenger to Brazil, Anyanwu Christian, who was to travel with the consignment, were arrested.

Also, plans by one Adebisi Aina Hafsat, a freight agent, to export 3,000 tablets of tramadol concealed in motor spare parts to Banjul, Gambia, through the NAHCO export shed, were equally thwarted by operatives of the NDLEA.

The agency seized the consignment and arrested Hafsat on Monday, November 28, while a follow-up operation in the Ebute-Meta area of Lagos the following day, Tuesday, November 29, led to the arrest of the actual owner of the consignment, Afam Chibuike Stanley, a car spare parts dealer.