The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, at the weekend arrested a 56-year-old trafficker, Lawal Lateef Oyenuga, who was on a mission to deliver 400grams cocaine, concealed in a pair of palm sandals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The agency disclosed this on Sunday, 27 November, 2022, in a statement through its official website.
This was swiftly followed by the arrest of a wanted notorious kingpin, Wasiu Sanni Gbolahan, popularly known as teacher, who recruits mules for the cartel.
The sandals were used to hide two packages of cocaine totaling 400 grams, according to a careful analysis. It had only been a week since Mrs Ajisegiri Kehinde Sidika, a 56-year-old widow and mother of four, was detained at the airport for attempting to board a Qatar Airways aircraft to Makkah, Saudi Arabia with 400 kilos of cocaine hidden in her shoes.
According to Oyenuga's confession, Gbolahan recruited him to trade the drug. He also said initially, he was given some cocaine pellets to swallow, but when he was unable to do so, he was then given the ones hidden in the palm sandals. He said that in order to acquire funds to pay for his daughter's Senior Secondary School class three test cost, he resorted to the criminal world.
According to the agency's database, Wasiu Sanni (Teacher) has a history of attempting to smuggle cocaine into Saudi Arabia and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He was previously identified as the person who hired Bolajoko Muyiwa Babalola, a BRT driver, for Lagos socialite and Adekaz Hotels owner, Alhaji Ademola Afolabi Kazeem (also known as Alhaji Abdallah Kazeem Muhammed), to smuggle narcotics to Dubai.
The report noted that Kazeem was apprehended on Thursday, 10 November, just 10 days after the NDLEA had made him a wanted man. Bolajoko was detained on 27 June, while transporting 900 grams of cocaine to Dubai.
The kingpin, teacher, was apprehended at his home in the Ikorodu neighborhood of Lagos in the early hours of Friday, 25 November, as a result of a follow-up operation. The 64-year-old house and property agent Gbolahan has four spouses, one of whom is now dead, seven children, and seven grandchildren.
In a related development, attempt by an Organised Criminal Group to traffic 131kg of ephedrine, a dominant precursor chemical for the production of methamphetamine to Congo Kinshasa through the SAHCO export shed of the airport was foiled on Monday 21 November, by NDLEA operatives in conjunction with Aviation Security (AVSEC) officers.
