NDLEA Arrests Saudi-bound Suspected Wanted Drug Lord

Operatives of a special operations unit of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested 40-year-old Yussuf Abayomi Azeez, a wanted suspected drug lord.

Azeez was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos State while on his way to Saudi Arabia for Umrah, a holy pilgrimage, after months of NDLEA’s intelligence and surveillance on him and his criminal drug activities.

The NDLEA revealed that the drug kingpin had been arrested and charged for drug offences in the United Kingdom but jumped bail and escaped to Nigeria.

“Soon after settling down in Lagos, he set up a massive clandestine laboratory in the Lekki area of the state for the production of Colorado, a deadly synthetic cannabis and other illicit substances,” NDLEA’s spokesperson Femi Babafemi said on Sunday.

Babafemi further explained that Azeez walked into the waiting hands of NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport while attempting to board his flight to Saudi Arabia for Umrah at about 6:30am on Thursday, November 6, 2025.

“He was swiftly driven to his 17 Vincent Eku Street, Ogombo, Lekki, clandestine laboratory which has been under surveillance for a while,” the NDLEA’s spokesman said.

He further said Azeez was at the time of his arrest, in company of another suspect, 43-year-old Abideen Kekere-Ekun.

“Inside the massive building, operatives from the agency’s Directorate of Forensic and Chemical Monitoring were able to dismantle all installed laboratory equipment, precursor chemicals and already produced illicit substances including Colorado, all weighing 148.3 kilograms,” Babafemi said.

In another development, NDLEA operatives in conjunction with men of Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies on Friday, November 7, discovered 105.5kg Molly, a designers drug and 500grams of methamphetamine during a joint examination of a shipment at the Sifax bonded terminal in Okota, Lagos.

Also in Niger State, NDLEA operatives on Thursday, November 6, arrested a 35-year-old Ibrahim Mohammed in a Volvo truck marked GRZ 872 XA along Kainji-Wawa road while conveying 87,000 pills of tramadol and 72kg of skunk, a strain of cannabis.