NDLEA arrests newlywed cocaine trafficker, seizes 2.55m opioid pills in Lagos

Abdullateef Fowewe

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a 25-year-old newlywed businessman, Lovely Chukwulobelu, at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, for attempting to traffic 72 wraps of cocaine to Portugal.

Femi Babafemi, NDLEA’s Director of Media and Advocacy, said in a statement on Sunday that the suspect was intercepted on Thursday, 25 September 2026, “with cocaine in his gut and wedding ring on his finger” as he tried to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Portugal via Addis Ababa.

Chukwulobelu, who claimed he ran a car-decoration business at Lagos’s Trade Fair Complex before relocating to Portugal in May 2023, told investigators he “resorted to the criminal trade to offset expenses incurred during his wedding” after returning to Nigeria to marry on 13 September 2026.

In a separate operation at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, NDLEA officers on 22 September uncovered one of the year’s biggest opioid hauls: 2,550,000 pills of Tramaking and Royal Tapentadol, with a combined gross weight of 1,640.55kg, hidden in three consignments from India and Bangladesh.

Across the country, the agency recorded multiple seizures and arrests: 262.5kg of skunk cannabis in Bauchi; two cannabis farms destroyed in Edo; 3.4kg of skunk and a large cache of drugs including 5.92kg of skunk, 40,000 tramadol pills and thousands of other tablets intercepted in Lagos raids; 305.6kg of skunk stopped on the Iganna–Ilero road in Oyo with two Togolese nationals; and 1,688.4kg of nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”) seized at the Seme border with five suspects.

NDLEA also intensified its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation in schools, worship centres and communities in Oyo, Edo, Gombe, Kano and Delta, even as Chairman/CEO Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd) commended the commands involved and urged continued “balanced approach to the drug control efforts of the Agency.”