By: Tunji Okunlola
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it has arrested a 34-year-old South African woman, Qhina Beauty, with 36.65 kilogrammes of cocaine at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.
The agency also said it arrested two other suspects in separate trafficking investigations, among them a Nigerian-American woman allegedly found with 9.45 kilogrammes of a high-grade cannabis strain known as “loud”.
NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, gave the details in a statement on Sunday.
The cocaine case
Babafemi said Beauty was arrested on October 7 in the airport’s departure hall as she prepared to board a Qatar Airways flight to South Africa via Doha. A search of her two travel bags allegedly turned up 30 blocks of cocaine, hidden with dried pepper, wrapped in cellophane tape and packed into seven parcels.
According to the statement, Beauty told investigators she arrived in Nigeria on September 30 to collect the consignment and had been promised R20,000 by another South African woman to deliver it. She reportedly named two other alleged members of the syndicate, one based in the United States and the other a Lagos-based car dealer.
Following surveillance at his residence in Shasha, Lagos, NDLEA operatives arrested the car dealer, Uchenna Umunnakwe, 46, on October 14 at Apple Junction, Ago Palace Way. The agency said he admitted receiving Beauty at the airport and lodging her at Santiago Hotel in Amuwo-Odofin, before moving her to Cynarisso Hotel near the airport ahead of her departure.
The cannabis case
In a separate operation, NDLEA officers arrested Anetor Gloria Ubong, a 62-year-old Nigerian-American realtor based in Richmond, Texas, on October 21 at the Lagos airport. Babafemi said Ubong, who holds Nigerian and US passports, was picked up on arrival aboard a United Airlines flight from Houston.
A search of one of her two checked-in boxes allegedly uncovered 18 parcels of loud concealed in gift-wrapping paper. Ubong reportedly told investigators that her daughter and the daughter’s future brother-in-law delivered the box to her home in the United States, for onward delivery in Nigeria to her daughter’s fiancé, identified as Jibola.
The NDLEA said the arrests were part of its continuing efforts to disrupt trafficking networks operating through Nigeria’s international airports.
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