Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have arrested a Lekki-based artistes’ manager and his Ikoyi businessman accomplice who specialise in distributing illicit drugs to fun seekers in VIP night clubs and lounges in Lekki and Island axes of Lagos State.
Their arrest followed an intelligence about a shipment of colorado, a synthetic strong strain of Indian hemp, coming from Los Angeles, United States.
Spokesman of NDLEA, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday in a statement, said that Oseni Abdulraheem Ayodeji Babatunde, aka Papalampa, was the first to be arrested in his house, No 3, Ope Daniel Taiwo Street, off Chisco Bus-Stop, Lekki, when the consignment arrived on Sunday, July 23.
The statement reads in part: “During preliminary interview with the suspect, he confessed he started the illicit trade three years ago and had been selling to patrons of clubs and lounges in Lekki and Lagos Island, some of which he identified as Quilox, Silver Fox, DNA and Hot Box.”
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He said that Papalama also confessed that besides the drug business, he organises shows for artistes around Lagos and outside Nigeria.
He explained that 10 parcels of Colorado weighing 2.50kg concealed inside large tins of coffee and duvets linked to Papalama were intercepted by NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, and that during a follow up search of his residence, operatives recovered some quantities of the same substance, a digital weighing scale and other paraphernalia.
An Ikoyi-based businessman, Nnadi Kingsley Ikenna, also linked to the shipment, was away in South Africa when the consignment arrived.
While operatives maintained surveillance around his 18 Okotie Eboh Close, Ikoyi, residence, they also set their dragnet for him at the airport and that when he eventually arrived he was arrested on Thursday, July 27, when he returned to the country on a Kenya Airlines flight at the Lagos airport, and that in his statement he accepted ownership of a part of the consignment.
