The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it has apprehended a 33-year-old Kenyan lady with 6.5 kilogrammes of cocaine at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja (NAIA).
The agency made this known in a statement by its Head, Public Affairs Unit, Mr Jonah Achema, on Monday in Abuja, and said that the lady while trying to smuggle the drug into the country.
Achema said that the arrest was made by the agency’s Special Area Command at the airport, and named the suspect as Angela Wairimu, a single mother of two.
He said that the suspect was apprehended on arrival from South Africa aboard an Ethiopian Airline Flight to Abuja.
“Some of the illicit substance was concealed in the false bottom of a travelling bag which also contained two wrapped parcels of the same illicit drug.
“She carried the bag as hand luggage,” he said.
According to Achema, Wairimu who shuttles between Kenya and South Africa claimed to be a modelling expert and a trader in clothes and cosmetics.
He said that the suspect claimed a friend in South Africa approached her to assist an unknown person to deliver the brief case containing wears in Nigeria which was brought to her at the Airport through an errand boy.
“She was to deliver the consignment to the husband of the sender who was to meet her at the airport in Abuja.
“She claimed to be on her second trip to Nigeria to procure home-made body beauty products and local fabrics for her enterprise called La Model in South Africa and Kenya.
“She denied being under any financial inducement but confessed that her daughter was suffering from acute leukaemia which put her under financial pressure,” he added.
According to the NDLEA Commander at the airport, Mr Hamisu Lawan, the seizure was the biggest cocaine shipment in recent times made by the command.
“We have had seizures of Heroin, Ephedrine and Methamphetamine going to Southern Africa and in some cases to Asia, and even as far as the Pacific region such as New Zealand.
“Although we are not surprised at cocaine coming from South Africa which is largely due to flight network connection, operating two flights daily from Sao Paulo,’’ he said.
The commander canvassed for the deployment of NDLEA officers and men in certain source countries as a matter of national security interest.
He advised drug traffickers to desist from testing the will of the agency saying “no matter the mode used by drug traffickers to conceal illicit drugs, we are well trained to detect it,” he stated.
Lawan, however, cautioned airport employees to be cautious of “insider threat” as this was what was making rip on/rip off possible.
He equally called for urgent implementation of Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Record (PNR) at the airports. (NAN)