Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have intercepted a vessel, MV Nord Bosporus, marked 9760110 from the port of Santos in Brazil at the Apapa seaport in Lagos with about 20 kilograms of cocaine.
This came six months after 10 Thai sailors and their ship were convicted and fined $4.3million for bringing 32.9kg cocaine to Nigeria.
The illicit drug consignment was discovered on board the vessel on November 16 by NDLEA officers who thereafter took the master of the ship, Captain Quino Eugene Corpus and 19 other crew members who are all Filipinos into custody for investigation.
Following the seizure and arrest of the crew members, the agency filed an application for an order of court for the detention of the vessel and the 20 Filipinos on board for further investigation.
The motion ex-parte in suit number FHC/L/MISC/1306/25 was argued before Justice Musa Kakaki of the Federal High Court, Lagos, who on November 20 granted the application for an initial 14 days detention of the vessel, Capt. Corpus and 19 other Filipino crew members.
NDLEA’S spokesman Femi Babafemi said preliminary investigation revealed that it was the first time the vessel was coming to Nigeria and Africa as it had been largely transporting coal between Colombia and Brazil.
