A statement on Sunday by the spokesman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Femi Babafemi, has confirmed the arrest of Henry Okamaru (a.k.a. Lawrence Ik Okamaru), a wanted drug kingpin, who the Agency has been on his trails for over five months.
Okamaru, who is one of the leaders of a cannabis cultivation cartel that operates in the Ondo-Ekiti axis, including Osun, Edo and Delta States respectively, was eventually nabbed in Ondo state from where he coordinates supplies of illicit consignments to Northern parts of the country and Lagos State.
According to Babafemi, the drug lord (Okamaru) has also been identified as a member of an international drug trafficking ring, that shuttles between Nigeria and South Africa.
Luck ran out of him when two of his ‘boys’ – Matthew Donuwe and Friday Nmborgwu were arrested last December with illicit drugs said to be loaded in Ogbese, Ondo state, inside a concrete mixer truck with Lagos registration number SMK 890 XB, enroute Adamawa state.
Their confessions led to the trail of Okamaru and his eventual arrest.
Similarly, one Nwakanma Uche, a 36-year-old Nigerian based in Italy, was also arrested at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, for ingesting pellets of heroin.
Nwakanma was nabbed while trying to board Air France Airline enroute Abuja-Paris-Milan, Italy on Sunday, May 15, 2022.
He was kept under observation during which he excreted 95 pellets of heroin. He was expected to be paid N1.5million after a successful delivery of the drugs in Milan.
Other raids across the country were in Edo, Kaduna, Kogi, Akwa Ibom and Oyo state respectively.
Chairman/Chief Executive of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Retd), praised his team for their offensive action against drug cartels and their kingpins.