NDLEA nab Canadian at Lagos Airport, seize ₦9bn worth of opioids

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a 41-year-old Canadian woman, Adrienne Munju, at Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos.

She was apprehended on Thursday, October 3, for importing a large quantity of “Canadian Loud,” a potent strain of synthetic cannabis.

NDLEA spokesperson Femi Babafemi announced the arrest in a statement on Sunday, stating that the suspect was caught during the inward clearance of passengers arriving on a KLM flight from Canada at Terminal 1 of the Lagos airport.

“During a joint examination of her three bags, Adrienne who was coming to Nigeria for the first time was found with 74 parcels of the illicit substance weighing 35.20 kilograms stuffed in two of her three bags,” he said.

“In her statement, she claimed she was recruited to traffic the consignment through an online platform for 10,000 Canadian dollars upon successful delivery in Lagos. She said she took the offer because she needed the money to pay for her ongoing master’s degree programme in Canada.”

In separate operations, NDLEA operatives at the Port Harcourt Ports in Onne, Rivers State, intercepted 13,298,000 pills of opioids, including Tramadol, Tramaking Quick Action Tramadol, Tamol-X, Royal Tapentadol, and Carisoprodol, as well as 338,253 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup. The seized drugs have a street value exceeding ₦9,017,771,000.

The opioids were recovered from three containers arriving from India. The NDLEA targeted these shipments during a 100% joint inspection of the cargoes in collaboration with Nigerian Customs and other port stakeholders on Wednesday, October 2, and Thursday, October 3, 2024.