NDLEA Intercepts Deadly Drug ‘Captagon’ In Kwara

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has seized the deadly terror drug, Captagon, in Kwara State.

This came five years after the first seizure of the drug, which is also known as an amphetamine substance in Africa.

According to NDLEA, captagon, a tiny, highly addictive pill, widely available across the Middle East, produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing them to stay awake for days, making them fearless, and predisposes them to reckless action that puts the lives of people around them in jeopardy.

The agency said its production and sale are controlled by militias and large criminal groups linked to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a means of generating funds for weapons and combatants, and for use as a stimulant to keep them fighting.

NDLEA’s spokesperson Femi Babafemi said the latest seizure of captagon, which street value costs as much as $25 a pill, was made on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, when the agency’s operatives on patrol along Bode Saadu Road, Kwara State intercepted a trailer conveying passengers.

Babfemi said, “A search conducted on one of the passengers, 33-year-old Nasiru Mu’azu led to the recovery of 10 packs of captagon consisting of 10,000 pills and nine packets of Tapentadol 250mg.”

In another interdiction operation at the Bode Saadu patrol point, NDLEA officers on Friday, April 24, intercepted a trailer marked RMY-70XA. A search of the truck led to the recovery of 155,900 capsules of tramadol; 6,000 ampuoles of tramadol injection; 3,000 tablets of Co- Codamol and 9,000 tablets of Bromazepam, concealed in a false compartment constructed under the trailer.

A 24-year-old suspect Aminu Isah has been taken into custody in connection with the seizure.

Meanwhile, NDLEA operatives in Oyo State on Tuesday, April 21, intercepted a commercial bus with registration number MNA 963 ZY, at Akinyele on Ibadan/Oyo Expressway, while en route Sokoto. A 33-year-old passenger Eze Prince Emeka was brought down from the vehicle and taken for body scan, which result confirmed ingestion of illicit drug.

The suspect who claims to be a businessman in Sokoto was subsequently placed under close excretion observation during which he excreted a total of 45 pellets of cocaine with a total weight of 1.043 kilograms in three excretions.

The decision to travel by road to Sokoto with the illicit drug in his stomach was to evade detection by NDLEA at the airport while further investigation revealed that upon arrival in Sokoto, the suspect was to excrete the pellets, rest for a few days, and subsequently re-ingest the substances to continue the journey through the trans-Saharan routes, with Algeria as a transit point and possible final destination in Europe.