N24m Cocaine Concealed In Roast Chicken

More drug traffickers in the country are becoming desperate in their bid to smuggle drugs into or out of the country, and have devised more dubious means to beat off officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
In the past, drug ingestion was the only means employed by drug traffickers to evade arrest. But, in recent times, those involved in this illicit trade have employed other means such as hiding of drugs in the soles of their shoes, anus and private parts.
The NDLEA at the weekend arrested an auto technician in connection with 2.655kg of cocaine hidden inside roast chicken.
Only recently, the agency disclosed that it arrested three suspected female drug traffickers for smuggling 4.5kg of narcotics in their underwear and wigs, while attempting to board a flight at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (NAIA), enroute to Malaysia.
Before that, a 48-year-old woman, Mande Fatima Bala, set a new record in narcotic smuggling in the country after she was arrested by the NDLEA with 66 wraps of methamphetamine concealed in her genitals.
The agency also recently sounded the alarm about the threat of smuggling large shipments of narcotics through Nigerian seaports into the country.
Only yesterday, the NDLEA airport commander, at Murtala Muhammed airport, Lagos, Mr Hamza Umar, who gave the name of the suspect arrested at the weekend as Vincent Chegini Chinweuwa describing the seizure as “remarkable”.
The cocaine with a street value of N24 million was discovered by the officials of the agency at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, during the inward clearance of passengers on a Turkish Airline flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
He explained that the suspect had given investigators useful information, adding: “We discovered 2.655kg of cocaine hidden inside roast chicken. It is a remarkable seizure because no one would have imagined cocaine worth several millions inside roast chicken.”
On interrogation, the suspect said he thought that the drug would not be detected in the roast chicken.
According to him, “It took me three days to pack the cocaine inside the roast chicken. I was confident that the drug will not be detected. I have been living in Brazil since 2006.
“Life has been stressful because I cannot even visit my wife in Nigeria due to lack of money. I wanted some money to start any business of my choice back home. Unfortunately, I was disappointed upon arrival in Lagos.”
Speaking on the arrest, the chairman/chief executive of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, said such intelligent detection and subsequent seizures would help to discourage others from the criminal drug trade.
Giade added: “The suspect thought his mode of drug concealment was perfect, but we proved him wrong. Several drugs cleverly hidden by drug barons have been discovered and we shall continue to detect drugs regardless of the mode of concealment.”
The agency recently disclosed that it had seized over 1.3 million kilogrammes of drugs in the last six years.

-leadershipng