An Ogun State-based businesswoman, Olayinka Adisa, travelling to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for Umrah (lesser Hajj) has been arrested by operatives of the National Law Drug Enforcement Agency for allegedly ingesting 80 pellets of cocaine.
Adisa was arrested on Wednesday, November 24, 2021, at the boarding screening area of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, during an outward clearance of Qatar Airways flight 1418.
The NDLEA, in a statement by its Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, on Monday, said the suspect claimed she trafficked the drug to get money for her in vitro fertilisation treatment.
Babafemi said the suspect excreted the 80 pellets of the drug between Wednesday, when she was arrested, and Saturday, November 27, 2021.
He said, “She claimed during interviews that she saved N2.5m over a period of one year to buy the drug in bits from six different people at Akala, in the Mushin area of Lagos. The suspect further said she was trading in clothes but had to borrow N1m from three persons to make up the money used to buy the drug, adding that she spent another N1m to renew her passport, visa and buy return flight tickets.
“She said she was encouraged to traffic the drug by a woman she met during her last Umrah trip to Saudi Arabia in 2019. She added that she needed to raise N7m for in vitro fertilization treatment due to pressure from people because she had been married for 28 years without a child due to fertility challenges.”
The NDLEA spokesperson said another trafficker, Inusa Abdulrazaki, was arrested on Friday, November 19, 2021, at the Gate C Departure Hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on his way to Italy via Istanbul on a Turkish airline with 101 wraps of heroin weighing 1.3kg.
Babafemi, who noted that the drug was concealed inside cassava flour, said an abandoned consignment of khat weighing 17.90kg was also discovered on Saturday at the airport during a routine cargo search at the NAHCO export shed.
