{"id":76904,"date":"2025-10-19T11:46:41","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=76904"},"modified":"2025-10-19T11:46:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T11:46:41","slug":"ndlea-uncovers-drugs-hidden-in-frozen-snails-bulbs-clothes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/19\/ndlea-uncovers-drugs-hidden-in-frozen-snails-bulbs-clothes\/","title":{"rendered":"NDLEA Uncovers Drugs Hidden in Frozen Snails, Bulbs, Clothes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has intercepted several attempts to smuggle illicit drugs concealed in frozen snails, electrical bulbs, and women\u2019s clothing, bound for the United States, United Kingdom, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.<\/p>\n<p>According to the agency\u2019s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, the seizures were made at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), and a courier company in Lagos. Two suspects were arrested.<\/p>\n<p>One of them, Boladale Riliwan, was caught on October 7 with 15 parcels of skunk hidden inside 10 rechargeable bulbs meant for export to the DRC. Another, 48-year-old Olawale Oyebola Hakeemot, a UK-based health worker, was arrested on October 12 while attempting to board a Qatar Airways flight to Manchester with 2,300 tramadol pills concealed in frozen snails.<\/p>\n<p>NDLEA operatives also uncovered 810 bromazepam tablets hidden in female apparel bound for the U.S. at a Lagos courier firm on October 16.<\/p>\n<p>Across the country, NDLEA recorded several major drug busts. In Adamawa, officers arrested Bello Buba with 38,270 tramadol pills hidden in his car\u2019s spare tyre and doors.<\/p>\n<p>In Ekiti and Ondo states, cannabis farms covering over 28 hectares were destroyed, with more than 70,000 kilograms of skunk seized.<\/p>\n<p>Similar operations in Oyo, Ogun, Imo, Enugu, and Lagos led to the recovery of over 500 kilograms of cannabis and thousands of opioid pills.<\/p>\n<p>At Apapa Port, 80,000 bottles of codeine syrup imported from India were also intercepted during a joint operation with Customs.<\/p>\n<p>NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), commended the operatives for their vigilance and urged them to sustain the momentum in the nation\u2019s drug control efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal &nbsp; The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has intercepted several attempts to smuggle illicit drugs concealed in frozen snails, electrical bulbs, and women\u2019s clothing, bound for the United States, United Kingdom, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the agency\u2019s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, the seizures were made at the Murtala [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":76905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76906,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76904\/revisions\/76906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}