Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Thursday, June 5, intercepted a mind-blowing consignment of “green tea” at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos.

Hidden inside 66 carefully wrapped parcels of what looked like innocent tea bags from Thailand was a potent payload — 62.2kg of Loud, a high-grade, mind-altering cannabis strain.

A statement from NDLEA’s spokesman, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday, said the parcel, which snuck in via Emirates Airlines from the UAE, had been under surveillance for over three weeks, thanks to a top-secret intelligence tip-off.

The NDLEA finally sprang the trap in a coordinated joint examination at the airport’s import shed.

But that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Barely days earlier, on Monday, June 2, the NDLEA made another jaw-dropping bust in Lagos — 1,665kg of skunk was intercepted along the Lekki-Ajah expressway. Two suspects, Gidado Abdulrasaq Ayinde and Obanla Oluwafemi, were caught red-handed and taken into custody as stunned onlookers watched the massive haul unfold.

Up north in Kaduna, the drug war took a shocking twist as NDLEA operatives on Tuesday, June 3, arrested 29-year-old Goodluck Nnaemeka with a staggering 612 bottles of codeine syrup and 2,970 pills of flunitrazepam — a dangerous prescription sedative often abused.

Later that same day, a long-wanted drug lord, Kabiru Musa aka KB, was captured in a tense operation in Kurmin Mashi, where earlier investigations led to the discovery of 25.7kg of skunk stashed at his base.

Meanwhile, in Edo State, things turned even darker. A suspicious Audi station wagon with plate number AAA 975 XU was stopped along Auchi Road, revealing 9kg of Loud hidden ingeniously in its spare tyre.

But the most astonishing twist came when two young ladies, Favour Joy and Joy Igwe, were nabbed in the Ikpoba Hill area of Benin City with a narcotics cache that reads like a chemical warfare list: 106.57kg of skunk, 1kg of Loud, 800g of Colorado and 302g of methamphetamine.

NDLEA Chairman and CEO, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), applauded his officers across MMIA, Lagos, Kaduna, and Edo commands for their gallant efforts in tearing into the web of traffickers.

“This is a battle we’re winning, one seizure, one arrest, and one life saved at a time,” he declared.