Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Ekene Theophilus, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Ikeja Lagos for ingesting 60 big wraps of cocaine.
The suspect who was arrested during inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the D-Arrival Hall of the Lagos airport on Sunday 21 January 2024, initially refused to undergo body scan, raising health concerns in a desperate bid to evade arrest.
The NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, said this on Sunday in Abuja in a statement.
He said that when the suspect was however offered other options, he accepted to be placed on excretion observation and shortly after excreted the first set of cocaine pellets, after which he expelled a total of 60 wraps of the class A drug weighing 1.279kgs in five excretions.
“In his statement, Udechukwu claimed he ingested the consignment in Brazil and was to discharge everything at the airport in Addis Ababa but could only excrete 15 pellets which he handed over to another member of his syndicate before his connecting flight to Nigeria was called,” Babafemi said.
Meanwhile, an ex-beauty queen, Ms. Aderinoye Queen Christmas, also known as Ms. Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye has been declared wanted by the agency after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos residence when NDLEA operatives raided her apartment at Oral estate, Lekki on Wednesday 24 January following credible intelligence she deals in illicit substances.
The suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation.
Recovered from her home during the search witnessed by the estate officials include 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame among others.
