Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Retd) Chairman, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), has said the agency in Lagos obstructed drugs worth N6 billion meant for insurgents.
Femi Babafemi, the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA, in a statement explained that loads of Captagon, a brand of Amphetamine were found by the agency’s operatives.
READ ALSO: NDLEA Recovers 35wraps Of Cocaine From Lady’s Underwear, Intercepts Drugs Going To Italy, Turkey
The statement said the agency’s Chief Executive Officer was dismayed at the evil intent of those involved in the importation of the substance into the country at a time Nigeria is faced with insecurity.
The statement said that Gen. Marwa reiterated the agency’s resolved and determination to ensure that everyone involved in the consignment faced the full wrath of the law.
The statement noted that sometime in March 2021, the agency received intel from their international partners on the shipment of illicit narcotics to Nigeria from the Middle East through the Apapa port.
It added that the container passed through three countries and was trans-loaded in a North African country and kept track of it alongside their partners.
It explained that the first attempt to examine the container was on Thursday, August 26, 2021, stressing that what the agency found inside the container were three (3) pieces of marble polishing machines, otherwise called sanders.
It added that further scrutiny on Monday, August 31, with the NDLEA sniffer dogs turned up a positive indication on the rotor coil of one of the three machines, pointing out that the next day, Wednesday, 1st September, 18,560 tablets of drug suspected to be Amphetamine (Captagon) weighing 3.2kg was found deeply concealed in one of the coils.
The statement said the following day, Thursday, September 2, the other two machines were dismantled, saying that a total of 451, 807 tablets, weighing 74.119 kilograms, were discovered hidden inside the rotor coils.
It said going by the street value of about $25 per tablet, the importer would have raised $11.3 million, which is equivalent to N6 billion.
The statement imagined the impact of the drug in the hands of criminal gangs or a fraction of the profit from its sale being used to fuel criminalities across the country, saying that it can think of the worst-case scenarios and there would still be farther from the repercussions that could be unleashed on the country.
It added, “It may interest you to know that, as far as we know, this is the first time this drug is being brought into any African country South of the Sahara. This tiny, highly addictive pill, widely available across the Middle East, produces a euphoric intensity in users, allowing them to stay awake for days, making them fearless, predisposes them to reckless action that puts the lives of people around them in jeopardy.”
According to the statement, the development should give any discerning Nigerian a nightmare concerning the drug.
It said the production and sale of the drug is controlled by militias and large criminal groups in the Middle East, maintaining that beyond any doubt, Captagon has been linked to the escalation of the Syrian Civil War.
The statement explained that a lot of seizures have been made since 2017, mostly in the Arabian Peninsula, and in Italy and Turkey, saying that at the point of origination, almost all the time, were traced back to Syria and Lebanon, giving rise to the theory that ISIS is behind the production and sale of Captagon as a means of generating funds for weapons and combatants and for use as a stimulant to keep them fighting.
It explained that Captagon was the name of the drug found on the phone of the French-Tunisian terrorist who killed 84 civilians in France on Bastille Day in 2016, saying that is the drug on their hands now.
READ ALSO: NDLEA Arrests 36-year-old Woman With 296,000 Tabs Of Illicit Drugs
It noted that if the facts are not grim enough, the agency recalled a lesson from history when in World War Two, Nazi Germany wreaked havoc across Europe with chemically-enhanced soldiers that the combined forces of Europe could not tame.
It lamented that the agency has a challenge at the present with insurgents, bandits, cultists, robbers, kidnappers and herders spilling rampaging across the country.
It said that given the dangerous background of Captagon, the destination for the seized drug is none other than the camps of insurgents and bandits all over the country.
Entertainment3 days ago
