Video: NDLEA busts fake pregnancy drug smugglers, nabs real estate CEO
Abdullateef Fowewe
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have dismantled audacious drug trafficking schemes, including a woman using a fake baby bump to hide tramadol and an Ivorian man excreting cocaine wraps at Kano airport, while arresting a real estate CEO leading a cartel in Lagos.
In a bizarre plot at the Seme land border, 35-year-old Kano businesswoman Rabi Muhammad was intercepted on Monday, February 16, 2026, attempting to cross into Benin Republic’s Cotonou.
“A full body search however revealed the absurd: her pregnancy was fake and her baby bump was designed with a pink coloured calabash used to conceal 3,200 capsules of tramadol, which she tied around her stomach,” NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi revealed in a statement on Sunday.
On the same day at Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), officers nabbed 41-year-old Ivorian Michael Gohouri (aka Anunwa Onyinye Michael) during screening for an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Milan.
A body scan led to his observation, where “he excreted 82 wraps of cocaine weighing 1.49 kilograms.”
Babafemi noted the suspect had ingested the drugs in a Kano hotel after shuttling from Lagos and Enugu, aiming for a €5,000 payout in Italy. Gohouri, who holds Italian residency and a Nigerian NIN, hails from Abidjan with family ties to Enugu State.
Raids across Lagos, Edo, Bauchi, Ondo, Delta, and Kogi yielded further arrests, including 68-year-old grandmother among others.
In Lagos, NDLEA targeted Trans Fortress Global Resources CEO Kolapo Oladapo Raji, 57, arrested February 12 at his Lekki residence after UK return.
“A search led to the recovery of four large bags containing parcels of Canadian Loud total weight of 89.20kg,” along with a Toyota Hilux, per the statement.
Raji admitted, “He said hundreds of millions of naira paid to him as profit by his overseas associate motivated him to establish his own independent drug distribution channel.”
