Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has intercepted consignments of Loud, a potent strain of cannabis, and codeine-based cough syrup with a combined street value of more than N5 billion at the Apapa, Tin Can Island and Onne seaports, while separately arresting a Milan-bound businessman with 4.80 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in the soles of shoes and the railings of travelling bags at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
The seizures, disclosed on Sunday in a statement by the NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, followed months of intelligence gathering and surveillance of the shipments from their ports of origin. At Apapa Port in Lagos, NDLEA officers, acting on intelligence and working alongside men of the Nigeria Customs Service and other stakeholders, subjected two containers from Bangkok, Thailand, to a hundred per cent examination. A search of one of the containers yielded 161 parcels of Thai Loud weighing 124 kilogrammes and valued at N372 million, concealed inside two refrigerators and two cartons.
At Tin Can Island Port, operatives conducted a joint examination on September 29 of a watch-listed container from Montreal, Canada. The search led to the recovery of 2,595 parcels of Canadian Loud weighing 1,297.5 kilogrammes, with a street value of more than N3.8 billion. The consignment was concealed inside a Toyota Sienna and a Hyundai Elantra, alongside 24 blue drums and six jumbo bags, all hidden within the container. The agency said the container had been placed on its watch list based on intelligence, underscoring the role of pre-emptive tracking in the operation.
At Onne Port in Rivers State, two containers that had also been watch-listed by the NDLEA based on processed intelligence were subjected to joint examination with Customs and other security agencies. Officers recovered 40 packs of Loud weighing 22 kilogrammes from a travelling bag and three of five vehicles shipped in one of the containers, comprising a Toyota Matrix, a Toyota Corolla and a Hyundai Elantra. The second container held 109,600 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup weighing 16,440 kilogrammes. Babafemi disclosed that the container had departed India for Saudi Arabia, where its history of origin was allegedly deleted in an attempt to prevent it from being targeted. The codeine and Loud consignments recovered at the port were valued at a combined N833.2 million.
The total value of the seizures across the three ports exceeds N5 billion, making the operation one of the agency's most significant port interceptions in recent months. It builds on a pattern of large-scale enforcement at Onne Port, where in April a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt granted an interim forfeiture order over 17 containers containing illicit opioids worth N33.69 billion, including millions of opioid pills and nearly 2.5 million bottles of codeine-based syrup. Weeks before the latest Tin Can Island seizure, the NDLEA had also announced the recovery of 1,200 parcels of Canadian Loud weighing 603.75 kilogrammes at the same port, valued at N1.81 billion.
In a related development at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, NDLEA operatives arrested a businessman, Philip Tunde, who was allegedly attempting to smuggle 4.80 kilogrammes of cocaine to Milan, Italy. Reports on his age conflicted, with some sources describing him as 28 years old and others as 38. He was arrested on September 27 at the joint screening point of Terminal 2, ahead of his Royal Air Maroc flight to Milan. A thorough search led to the recovery of 16 parcels of a white powdery substance hidden in the soles of eight pairs of trainers and canvas shoes, plus 195 wraps of the same substance concealed in the railings of four travelling bags. The substances tested positive for cocaine and weighed a combined 4.80 kilogrammes.
During interrogation, Tunde reportedly claimed he paid N16 million in cash for the cocaine concealed in the shoes, while the consignment hidden in the bags was intended for delivery to his partner in Italy. He told investigators that he raised the money from compensation he received after sustaining an injury at a plastic manufacturing company in Italy, where he lost the tips of two fingers. The agency did not disclose whether he had legal representation or whether he had been charged to court at the time of the statement. The suspect remains in custody, and the investigation is ongoing.
The operations extended beyond the ports and the airport. In Osun State, NDLEA operatives destroyed 20,234 kilogrammes of skunk recovered from an 8.0936-hectare cannabis farm at Area 4, Ife. The agency also recorded arrests in separate operations across Lagos, Kogi, Edo and Plateau states, reflecting what officials described as a sustained nationwide campaign against drug trafficking and cultivation.
The scale of the seizures underscores the persistent challenge facing Nigeria's drug enforcement architecture. Traffickers continue to employ increasingly sophisticated concealment methods, from hiding narcotics in vehicle compartments and household appliances to altering shipping records to obscure the origins of consignments. The use of watch lists and joint examinations with Customs and other agencies has proven effective in intercepting high-value shipments before they reach the domestic market. The NDLEA's collaboration with international partners and its intelligence-gathering capabilities have become central to disrupting these networks, particularly at seaports where containerised cargo offers traffickers the volume and anonymity they seek.
For the NDLEA, the interceptions represent a significant operational success and a demonstration of the agency's capacity to coordinate complex, multi-port enforcement actions. For the traffickers, the seizures represent the loss of consignments worth billions of naira and the disruption of supply chains that stretch from Southeast Asia and North America to West Africa and Europe. For Nigerian communities, the removal of these consignments from circulation reduces the availability of illicit substances that fuel addiction, crime and health crises. As Babafemi put it, the operations were the product of months of intelligence and tracking, and they reflect the agency's commitment to dismantling the networks that profit from the drug trade. The coming weeks will determine whether the suspects arrested in connection with the seizures are charged and prosecuted, and whether the momentum generated by these interceptions can be sustained in the face of an evolving and resilient criminal enterprise.
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