NDLEA nabs drug lord with 93 cocaine wraps in Lagos

On Friday, July 21, agents from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) attacked a hotel in Lagos' Okota neighbourhood and detained a drug lord as he was getting a hired courier ready to ingest 93 cocaine pellets intended for distribution in Italy.

Charles Uwagbale, 48, recruited Uju Dominic, 35, from his base in Italy with the promise that he would travel to Nigeria on Friday, July 21, consume 100 cocaine pellets, and then leave for Italy on Saturday, July 22.

Ago-Palace Way, Okota, Isolo, Lagos, where Uwagbale brought 93 wraps of the Class A drug for him to swallow at around 23:45 on Friday night. According to plan, the mule was lodged in Golden Heaven Hotel upon arrival in Nigeria, according to agency spokesperson Femi Babafemi in a statement yesterday.

He claims that the infamous drug lord specialises in funding young Nigerians to smuggle Class A drugs into Europe, particularly Italy.

However, the kingpin received an unpleasant shock when NDLEA agents, who had been hot on their track due to reliable intelligence, raided their hotel room, apprehended them, and recovered the drug exhibits, which weighed a total of 1.427 kilogrammes.

“Operatives of the Lagos Stare Command of the Agency, who made the arrest and seizure had on Thursday, July, 20 raided Akala in Mushin area of the state, where they recovered 37.5kg of cannabis from the home of a fleeing suspect,” he added.

“Meanwhile, attempts to smuggle 98 cartons containing 5,122,900 pills of Tramadol 225mg with an estimated street value of about N3.7 billion into Nigeria through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos, have been thwarted through the robust synergy between men of the Nigeria Customs Service and NDLEA officers at the airport, as well as those at the DHL cargo warehouse.

“Preliminary findings revealed that the consignments were imported from India and Pakistan, while some of the seized consignments had Freetown, Sierra Leone as final destination.

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