NDLEA Nabs India-bound Businessman With 9.40kg Heroin

Kingsley Celestino, a businessman, was taken into custody by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos, with more than 9.40 kilograms of heroin hidden in the false bottoms of his two suitcases.

On March 4, 2023, the suspect was detained at Terminal 2 of the MMIA while traveling to India in business class on a Qatar Airline flight.

The 49-year-old was on the run with a Guinean foreign passport despite being from the Nnewi South local government area of Anambra State.

The suspect routinely traveled to India in business class, according to preliminary investigations, and he claimed to be engaged in apparel trade between Nigeria and India.

Femi Babafemi, the NDLEA’s spokesperson, claimed that it was also shown that he received the Guinean international passport in Guinea Bissau, the country where he claimed his mother was from.

In a same vein, Etounu Monday, a 24-year-old traveler bound for Oman, was stopped on Monday, February 27, 2023 at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja while attempting to export 1.924kg of skunk smuggled in cream tubes.

NDLEA agents also discovered 244 packages of Canadian Loud weighing 79 kilograms at the Tin Can seaport in Lagos on Friday, March 3. The Canadian Loud was hidden in medium-sized wooden sound system speakers packed inside two out of four used cars in a container with the tracking number CRSU9258348 that was headed from Toronto to Montreal, Canada.

A 2009 Jeep Wrangler and a 2009 Honda Ridgeline were imported cars utilized as a cover for the drugs.

A shipment of nine packets of methamphetamine disguised as local black soap, Dudu Osun, and bound for Europe was also confiscated by NDLEA operatives from the Directorate of Operations and General Investigation (DOGI) assigned to courier companies in Lagos.