The Kano State Police Command has paraded a 55-year-old man, Dickson Omofale from Anambra State alongside eight others for allegedly buying and selling hard drugs and other intoxicating substances including cocaine, tramadol, tutolin and fakalin.
The Kano State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Magaji Musa Majia stated on Monday that the suspects were arrested within a spate of 60 days, stressing that 30,000 grams of Indian hemp were recovered in Sharada Ja`en Quarters.
The other suspects include Beneth Emeaghara, Anthonia Erechi, Louise Chigozie, Ogbonna all from Imo state.
Others were: Emma Mbule from Anambra, and Haruna Adamu Indegine of Katsina State and Henry Sunday from Edo state.
Majiya lamented that among the hard drug dealers arrested, 90 percent were not indigenes of the state while their direct customers were youths and women who constituted 90 percent of Kano State Indigenes.
Meanwhile, an international gang of drug peddlers that swallowed up to 500 grams of cocaine/heroin each and were headed for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were also arrested.
Majiya said each of the suspected drug peddlers had been paid between N600,000 and N800,000 for every trip.
The suspects were arrested with a cocaine machine which they used to seal the cocaine with a cellophane material and turn it into a capsule to ease swallowing.
It was gathered that the drugs recovered from the suspects had a street value of N1.2 billion.
In the same vein, Majiya said an operation codenamed GIDA GIDA, which is an house to house search for drug dealers, is yielding more fruitful results as over 250 drug retailers and addicts were apprehended at various hideouts and charged to court.
Items of intoxication recovered include over 900 cartons of Tramadol tabs, cocaine powder, 48,000kgs of Indian hemp, hundreds of thousands bottles of cough syrups including Tutolin, Rephenol, Packaline, Suck and Die, Rubber solution.
He warned the general public against colluding with illicit drug dealers to allow their house or means of transportation be used to conceal hard drugs and other intoxicating substances, as anyone caught doing so would be dealt with in accordance with the provision of the law.
Majiya appealed to the good people of the state including good citizens, stakeholders, traditional and religious rulers, institutions and NGOs to assist the police with information about any house that accommodates drug dealers and any other crime in the state for immediate action.