A man has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for concealing cash sums totalling $34,000 in his boxer shorts while trying to catch a flight to Brazil.
According to a statement on Friday by Head of Public Affairs of the agency, Mr. Mitchell Ofoyeju, the man identified as Ozoh Ikenna was caught with the said sum in 23 wraps of notes at the Muritala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos.
Ofoyeju said the man was caught during screening of passengers boarding Etihad Airways flight to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
“The wraps of dollars found on Ikenna were detected with the aid of scanning machine. “We also conducted a follow-up operation where one Ogbo Emmanuel, who gave Ozoh the $34,000 was arrested,” Mr. Ahmed Garba, NDLEA Airport Commander was quoted as saying.
In the same vein, the statement said the agency’s Assets and Financial Investigation Directorate revealed that Ikenna and Emmanuel were involved in the laundering of drug proceeds of a sizable amount.
“We were able to trace over N226m to one bank account belonging to the second suspect, Ogbo Emmanuel,” the Head of the Directorate, Mrs Victoria Egbase said. “The account name is Eternal God International Limited.”
Furthermore, the statement revealed that suspected drug proceeds were regularly deposited in the account by members of an international drug cell that specialises in the trafficking of cocaine from South America to West Africa.
Promising to sustain the heat on criminal elements involved in illicit drug trafficking, Chairman of NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade said that the agency was targeting wealth accumulated through drug proceeds.
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