The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said its operatives have arrested two Qatar-based drug kingpins with methamphetamine consignment.
NDLEA Spokesman,Femi Babafemi said in a statement on Sunday that the kingpins, Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, alias Murphy and Ugwuoke Peter Oluchukwu, were arrested by the agency at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja, Lagos.
Babafemi said Ugwuoke was the first to be arrested on 9th June during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways passengers at the departure point, Terminal 2 of the Lagos airport.
He said the NDLEA officers discovered that the suspect was travelling to Doha, the Qatari Capital with an Ivorian international passport with the name Hien Narcisse.
“A further scrutiny of his black carry-on luggage led to the discovery of a false bottom concealment of two parcels of crystalline substance that tested positive to methamphetamine weighing 1.00kg.
“Preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect is a Nigerian who had gone to obtain an Ivorian passport for his travels.
“He confessed that he travelled to Qatar in August 2022 and returned from the Arab nation about two months ago to perfect arrangement for the movement of the drug consignment,”
A further probe by the operatives according to Babafemi led to discovery that his Qatar-based senior partner in the trade simply identified as Murphy was lurking around in Eziani, his home town in Nsukka LGA, Enugu State.
“A prompt deployment of NDLEA operatives on 10th June to Eziani community of Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State, led to the arrest of ‘Murphy’ whose true identity was later discovered to be Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, who had lived in Indonesia for some years before relocating to Doha, Qatar,”
He disclosed that Ugwuoke,an indigene of Igboeze North Local Government Area of the state claimed he holds a National Diploma in Electrical Engineering from the Federal Polytechnic,Oko
