NDLEA Nabs 2 Britons, Intercepts N6.5bn Worth Of Opioids

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested two British nationals: Mhizha Jordan Alexander Tatendra and Ayedipe Andrew Adejuwon, for attempting to smuggle into Nigeria 92 bags of Loud, a potent strain of cannabis weighing 51.10kg through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos.

The NDLEA also arrested Shonowo Oluwaseun Imole and Ofuoma Omokaro Ayobami, Nigerians, in the operations.

NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said Alexander was intercepted with the consignment upon his arrival at the MMIA on a Qatar Airline flight from Doha on Thursday, May 15, based on processed intelligence.

NDLEA operatives allowed him to pass through the security control unhindered. They closely monitored him to the car park, where the cargo owner, Adejuwon, a Nigerian British, was waiting in an SUV along with his relative Imole and the driver of the vehicle, Ayobami, to receive the courier.

The NDLEA operatives tracking them, however, swooped on them as they attempted to drive out of the airport car park, arresting them with the drug exhibits in the vehicle.

In his statement, Alexander confessed he was recruited during his vacation weeks ago and was promised 1,300 British Pounds after successfully delivering the consignment in Lagos.

The NDLEA said the arrowhead of the syndicate, Adejuwon, confessed that he arrived in Nigeria a day earlier from South Africa through Ghana. A follow-up operation at their apartment in Lekki led to more discoveries. At the point of his arrest, N93,000 and 17,200 South African Rand were recovered from him while a search of his Lekki apartment led to the seizure of N3,810,500 cash, an Apple laptop, an iPhone 14 Pro Max and four laughing gas (Nitro Oxide) canisters.

Meanwhile, no fewer than six million pills of opioids namely: tamol 225mg, tapentadol 225mg and carisoprodol 225mg as well as 332,000 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup with a combined street value of N6,524,000,000.00 were intercepted by operatives of the NDLEA at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne, Rivers and the Apapa seaport, Lagos.

Babafemi said the seizures at the Apapa and Onne ports followed intelligence and tracking of new trafficking routes to ship illicit substances into Nigeria by drug cartels, which necessitated the watch-listing of the containers for 100 per cent examination. The consignments at the Port Harcourt ports: six million pills of opioids and 162,000 bottles of codeine syrup were uncovered in two containers on Monday, 19th and Tuesday, 20th May 2025, during a joint examination of the shipments by NDLEA officers with men of the Nigeria Customs and other security agencies. At the Apapa port in Lagos, a total of 170,000 bottles of codeine syrup were discovered in a watch-listed container by NDLEA operatives during a similar joint examination exercise on Thursday, 22nd May.