The Nationa Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA has arrested a Canadian woman at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos, for bringing synthetic cannabis into the country.
The 41-year-old woman, Adrienne Munju, was arrested for importing a large consignment of a strong strain of synthetic cannabis called ‘Canadian Loud’ into Nigeria.
The suspect was arrested during the inward clearance of passengers on a KLM airline flight from Canada at Terminal One of the Lagos airport, Thursday last week.
A statement released on Sunday by Femi Babafemi, NDLEA’s spokesman said that during a joint examination of her three bags, Adrienne, who was in Nigeria for the first time, was found with 74 parcels of the illicit substance weighing 35.20 kilogrammes, stuffed in two of her three bags.
According to Babafemi, Adrienne, in her statement, claimed she was recruited to traffic the consignment through an online platform for 10,000 Canadian dollars upon successful delivery in Lagos.
She said she took the offer because she needed the money to pay for her ongoing master’s degree programme in Canada.
Babafemi also disclosed that 13,298,000 pills of opioids, including Tramadol, Tramaking Quick Action Tramadol, Tamol-X, Royal Tapentadol, and Carisoprodol, as well as 338,253 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup worth over N9,017,771,000, were recovered at the Port Harcourt Ports Onne, Rivers State.
He said the opioids were recovered in three containers coming from India, targeted by the NDLEA during a 100% joint examination of the cargoes with men of the Nigerian Customs and other port stakeholders on October 2 and 3, 2024.
Babafemi also announced that at the Tincan seaport in Lagos, 100 parcels of Canadian Loud weighing 50kg were intercepted on October 3, adding that the consignment was packed in 20 parcels each in five jumbo bags concealed in a container with four units of imported vehicles that came with it.
He said, though the container had earlier been cleared out of the ESS Libra Bonded Terminal in Ikorodu based on credible intelligence, NDLEA operatives were able to trace it to a warehouse in Ikorodu where the illicit consignments were discovered in one of the imported vehicles, a Toyota Sienna bus.
He disclosed that a suspect, Abubakar Shuaibu Ibrahim, has already been taken into custody in connection with the seizure.
Also in Taraba, Babafemi said NDLEA officers on October 3 intercepted a commercial bus marked JAL 198 YQ coming from Onitsha, Anambra State, to Jalingo.
He added that 80 blocks of cannabis weighing 38kg hidden in bags of garri were also recovered in the state.
Equally, the NDLEA spokesman disclosed that large quantities of opioids, Tramadol, Rohypnol, and codeine-based syrup concealed in body compartments of the vehicle were recovered when it was searched, while two suspects were arrested.
