A 70-year-old grandma, Selifat Funke Cole, and her son, Babajide Ayorinde Cole, have been arrested for drug trafficking.
The duo were arrested in Lagos by officials of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Thursday, December 21.
This was disclosed in a Sunday statement by the spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi, saying NDLEA raided a house in the Mushin area of Lagos where the suspects were apprehended with 117.900kgs of cannabis sativa.
“On Thursday, December 21, NDLEA operatives raided a house in Mushin area of Lagos where a 70-year-old grandma, Selifat Cole, and her son, Babajide Cole were arrested with 117.900kg of cannabis saliva,” he said.
He said no fewer than 7,500,000 pills of tramadol 225mg were intercepted by the NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Ikeja, adding that the substance was trafficked through the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc import shed of the airport and was intercepted by officers with the cooperation of men of the Nigeria Customs and other stakeholders.
The consignment which was taken into custody on Friday, December 22, came onboard a Turkish airline with no country of manufacture or origin.
“Apart from being the first time such shipment would be seized on the airline’s flight, it was equally the first of such coming from Hamburg, Germany. The 7.5 million tramadol 225mg pills were also specially designed and packaged as tamol-x concealed in 100 big cartons weighing 7,150kg, which arrived in the country on December 11 and were placed under surveillance until last Friday.
“Preliminary tests of the tablets proved positive for tramadol hydrochloride,” the spokesman said.
In the same vein, operatives of the Lagos command of the agency on Wednesday, December 20 conducted a search operation on two shops marked Chex Mat Global Link Limited at the Trade Fair complex in the Ojo area of Lagos.
Babafemi said that 258 cartons of codeine-based cough syrup and eight cartons of codeine tablets were recovered.
He said the cartons contained 49, 200 bottles of codeine syrup and 46, 200 tablets of the same opioid.
