Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested two Qatar-based drug kingpins, Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, alias Murphy, and Ugwuoke Peter Oluchukwu, following the interception of their methamphetamine consignment at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos.
Spokesman of NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, who disclosed this on Sunday in a statement, said Ugwuoke was the first to be arrested on June 9, during the outward clearance of Qatar Airways passengers.
He said, “NDLEA officers discovered that the suspect was travelling to Doha with an Ivorian passport with the name, Hien Narcisse. A further scrutiny of his black carry-on luggage led to the discovery of a false bottom concealment of two parcels of crystalline substance that tested positive to methamphetamine, weighing 1.00kg.”
He explained that Ugwuoke confessed that he travelled to Qatar in August 2022 and returned from the Arab nation about two months ago to perfect arrangements for the movement of the drug consignment.
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He further said that a further probe led operatives to discover that his Qatar-based senior partner in the trade, simply identified as Murphy, was lurking around Eziani, his home town in Nsukka LGA, Enugu State.
Babafemi added that a prompt deployment of NDLEA operatives on June 10 to Eziani led to the arrest of Murphy whose true identity was later discovered to be Eyah Celestine Nnamdi, who had lived in Indonesia for some years before relocating to Doha.