Video: NDLEA arrests long-elusive drug kingpin after 13-year manhunt
Abdullateef Fowewe
Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has finally captured notorious drug lord Reginald Peter Chidiebere, who had been “in hiding” for 13 years following major cocaine and heroin busts.
A statement, signed Sunday by NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, revealed that the first nabbed in 2013 for smuggling cocaine into the country via Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos, he jumped bail granted by Justice Ayokunle Faji of the Federal High Court and vanished.
His name resurfaced in February 2024 as a key figure behind a 49.70kg heroin shipment from South Africa, intercepted at the Lagos airport’s import shed.
A raid on his Golden Platinum Hotel & Suites in Okota, Lagos, yielded another 2.20kg of heroin from a guest, Igbuanugo Ebuka ThankGod, after which Chidiebere went deeper underground.
NDLEA seized his hotel via interim forfeiture and froze his bank accounts.
Unable to sustain his fugitive life, he surrendered on February 13, 2026, and now faces original 2013 charges plus new ones tied to the 2024 heroin.
In Imo State, operatives dismantled a hidden meth lab on February 25, 2026, in Isiozi Obiato, Umuaka, Njaba LGA, recovering “18.4kg methamphetamine, precursor chemicals, and production equipment.” At Lagos’ Seme border on February 27, they stopped Togolese national Hadiza Musa carrying 5,000 tramadol pills in her luggage.
Meanwhile, 1,040kg of skunk cannabis turned up in an unfinished building at Akodo village, Seaside Eleko, Ibeju-Lekki, on the same day.
