Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), have smashed drug syndicates and intercepted 31.124 million pills of tramadol 225mg and bottles of codeine-based syrup worth over N17.93 billion in street value at the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, Rivers State and Tincan seaport in Lagos.
In a statement, NDLEA said: “The seizures were made following intelligence processed by the agency on the movement of the shipments from their port of origin in India, leading to a demand for a 100 per cent joint examination of the watch-listed containers with the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and other sister security agencies.
“A breakdown of the seizures show that 350,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup were recovered from two containers at Tincan port in Lagos on 29 and 30 August 2024. Each of the two containers had 175,000 bottles of the opioid.
“At the Port Harcourt Port Complex, Onne, NDLEA operatives equally intercepted a total of 447 cartons of tramadol 225mg containing 29,840,000 pills of the opioid as well as 380,000 bottles of codeine syrup from three containers on 29 August.
“The tramadol shipments came under different brand names such as Royal Tapetadol, Carisoprodol 225mg and Royal Tramadol Hydrochloride 225mg.
“The following day, 30 August, another set of three containers watch-listed by NDLEA were subjected to joint examination. At the end of the exercise, a total of 3,030 cartons of codeine syrup containing 554,600 bottles of the opioid were recovered from them.
“This brings the total bottles of codeine seized at Onne, Rivers and Tincan in Lagos to 1,284,600 bottles worth N8.992 billion in street value while the combined seizure of tramadol stood at 29, 840,000 pills valued at N8.94 billion.
“In the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Rivers State on 27 August, arrested a suspect, Eze Don, while attempting to board a Cronos airline flight to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea with 1,490 pills of tramadol concealed and packaged as cosmetics of different brands inside his luggage.
“His attempt to compromise the officers to evade arrest was rebuffed.
“A wanted ex-beauty queen, Ms. Aderinoye Christmas also known as Ms. Queen Aderinoye has surrendered to the Lagos Command of the agency after about eight months in hiding.
“She was declared wanted by the agency in January after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos residence when NDLEA operatives raided her apartment at Oral Estate, Lekki on 24 January, following credible intelligence she deals in illicit substances.
“The suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation.
“Recovered from her home during the search witnessed by the estate officials include 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame among others”.
