Udechukwu was found to have ingested 60 wraps of cocaine, amounting to a total weight of 1.279 kilograms, during a flight originating from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
This information was disclosed in an official statement released on Sunday by Femi Babafemi, the Director of Media and Advocacy for the NDLEA. The statement was published on the agency's website.
The statement said, “Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have arrested a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Ekene Theophilus at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Ikeja Lagos for ingesting 60 big wraps of cocaine.
“The suspect who was arrested during inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the D-Arrival Hall of the Lagos airport on Sunday 21st January 2024, initially refused to undergo body scan, raising health concerns in a desperate bid to evade arrest.
“When he was however offered other options, he accepted to be placed on excretion observation and shortly after he was ushered into NDLEA observatory, he excreted the first set of cocaine pellets, after which he expelled a total of 60 wraps of the class A drug weighing 1.279 kilogrammes in five excretions.”
NDLEA said Udechukwu claimed in his statement that he ingested the consignment in Brazil and was to discharge everything at the airport in Addis Ababa but could only excrete 15 pellets which he handed over to another member of his syndicate before his connecting flight to Nigeria was called.
Additionally, NDLEA operatives recovered 12 cartons of tramadol weighing 385.40kg from an overstayed cargo at the SAHCO import shed at Lagos airport. The tramadol arrived in two batches on KLM Royal Dutch Airline flights from Karachi, Pakistan, between July 27 and August 1, 2023.
