At the Murtala Muhammed
International Airport, Lagos ‘The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency’ has
apprehended four suspected drug traffickers for attempting to smuggle cocaine
to Brazil.
It was learnt that the
suspects ─ Ejiofor Eliezer (46), Obah Francis (30), Akpa Sobuzochukwu (27) and
36-year-old Ike Okechukwu ─ excreted 171 wraps of drug that tested positive for
cocaine.
Punch Metro gathered that
the discovery was made during the screening of passengers on board Qatar and
Emirates airlines.
Eliezer, who excreted 100
wraps of the drug, told investigators that poverty pushed him to commit the
crime, adding that he had intended to use the expected proceed to fend for his
family of four.
“I live in Brazil, where I
work in a supermarket and lived with my wife and four children. Life in Brazil
is tough because I live from hand to mouth. It was poverty that made me to
smuggle drugs. I took risk by swallowing 100 wraps of cocaine for N200,000
because of poverty.”
Francis said he took to
drug trafficking to augment the meager salary he earned at a bakery in Brazil.
“I am single and have been
working in Brazil for two years. At present, I work in a bakery and my salary
is meager. My plan was to give the drug to a friend in Dubai, but he did not
come to collect the drug as planned. This was how I had to come to Nigeria with
the drug. I blame my friend for my arrest because I would have made S15,000
(about N2.8m) from the deal.”
Sobuzochukwu, who holds a
diploma in accounting, also said his poor salary as a cleaner forced him to
ingest 26 wraps of cocaine for a fee of S1,500 (about N285,000).
Okechukwu said he did not
think that he would be arrested. He said he had thought that the five wraps of
cocaine he ingested would not be detected.
“I regret my involvement in
drug trafficking. I dropped out of school in Junior Secondary Schoolclass two
and I work in a toy company in Brazil,” he added.
The NDLEA Chairman, Ahmadu Giade, said
Brazil-Nigeria route was a high risk path to drug trafficking
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