Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have intercepted illicit drugs valued at over N6.5 billion in operations carried out at the Port Harcourt Ports Complex, Onne in Rivers State and the Apapa Seaport in Lagos.

NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, disclosed on Sunday that it recovered approximately six million opioid pills, including tamol, tapentadol, and carisoprodol (all 225mg), alongside 332,000 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup in two separate seizures.

Babafemi said the seizures followed a series of intelligence and tracking of new trafficking routes to ship illicit substances into Nigeria by drug cartels, which necessitated the watchlisting of the containers for 100 percent examination.

According to him, the consignments at the Port Harcourt ports: six million pills of opioids and 162,000 bottles of codeine syrup were uncovered in two containers on Monday 19th and Tuesday May 20th, 2025, during a joint examination of the shipments by NDLEA officers with men of the Nigeria Customs and other security agencies.

Babafemi added that at the Apapa port in Lagos, a total of 170,000 bottles of codeine syrup were discovered in a watch-listed container by NDLEA operatives during a similar joint examination exercise on Thursday, 22nd May.

In a separate operation, Babafemi revealed that four suspects, two of them British nationals, were arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos while attempting to smuggle 92 bags of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis weighing 51.10 kg, through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos.

One of the suspects, Mhizha Jordan Alexander Tatendra, was intercepted upon arrival from Doha via a Qatar Airways flight on May 15.

According to Babafemi, he was monitored to the airport car park where the alleged recipient, Ayedipe Andrew Adejuwon, and two others, Shonowo Oluwaseun Imole and Ofuoma Omokaro Ayobami, were waiting in an SUV to receive the courier.

The NDLEA operatives tracking them however swooped on them as they attempted to drive out of the airport car park, arresting them with the drug exhibits in the vehicle, Babafemi noted.

Alexander, however, confessed he was recruited during his vacation weeks ago while he was promised 1,300 British Pounds after a successful delivery of the consignment in Lagos.

The arrowhead of the syndicate, Ayedipe Andrew Adejuwon, confessed that he arrived in Nigeria a day earlier from South Africa through Ghana.”

“A follow-up operation at their apartment in Lekki led to more discoveries. At the point of his arrest, N93,000 and 17,200 South African Rand were recovered from him while a search of his Lekki apartment, led to the seizure of Three Million Eight Hundred and Ten Thousand Five Hundred Naira (N3,810,500) cash, an Apple laptop, an iPhone 14 Pro Max and four laughing gas (Nitro Oxide) canisters.”