NDLEA Declares Ex-beauty Queen Wanted for Allegedly Dealing in Illicit Drugs

*Brazilian returnee excretes 60 wraps of cocaine

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has declared an ex-beauty queen, Ms. Aderinoye Queen Christmas also known as Ms. Queen Oluwadamilola Aderinoye wanted over allegations of dealing in illicit drugs.

The spokesman of the anti-narcotics agency, Femi Babafemi in a statement on Sunday said the ex beauty pageant was declared wanted after she escaped from her Lekki, Lagos residence when NDLEA operatives raided her apartment at Oral Estate, Lekki last Wednesday.

He said the raid followed credible intelligence that she deals in illicit substances, adding that the suspect was Miss Commonwealth Nigeria Culture 2015/2016 and founder of Queen Christmas Foundation.

Babafemi disclosed that recovered from her home during the search witnessed by the estate officials include 606 grams of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, an electronic weighing scale, large quantities of drugs packing plastics, a black RAV 4 SUV marked Lagos KSF 872 GQ, and her picture frame among others.

In other roll call of clampdowns during the week, Babafemi said operatives of the agency have arrested a Brazil returnee, Udechukwu Theophilus at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos for ingesting 60 big wraps of cocaine.

According to him, the suspect who was arrested during inward clearance of passengers on Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the D-Arrival Hall of the Lagos airport on Sunday January 21, 2024, initially refused to undergo body scan, raising health concerns in a desperate bid to evade arrest.

Babafemi said when the suspect was offered other options, he accepted to be placed on excretion observation and shortly after he was ushered into NDLEA observatory, he excreted the first set of cocaine pellets, after which he expelled a total of 60 wraps of the class A drug weighing 1.279 kilogrammes in five excretions.

Udechukwu, in his statement, claimed he ingested the consignment in Brazil and was to discharge everything at the airport in Addis Ababa but could only excrete 15 pellets which he handed over to another member of his syndicate before his connecting flight to Nigeria was called.

The spokesman said in the same vein, NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport last Tuesday recovered a total of 12 cartons of tramadol 225mg containing 599,900 pills weighing 385.4 kilogrammes from an overstayed cargo at the SAHCO import shed of the Lagos airport after a joint examination with other agencies.

He said the tramadol consignment had come into the country in two batches on KLM Royal Dutch Airline flights from Karachi, Pakistan between  July 27 and  August 1, 2023. They were however placed under watch by NDLEA operatives since then.

Babafemi said not less than 822 kilogrammes of cannabis sativa hidden in a fuel station located at Ashipa community along Badagry-Seme road were recovered by operatives of the Seme Special Area Command of NDLEA, while a suspect Sani Audu, 35, was arrested with 111.3 kilogrammes of same substance at Maigatari town in Jigawa State last Tuesday.

Babafemi, also disclosed that two members of an international drug trafficking syndicate: Sunday Owoborode, 52, and Valentine Anene were arrested last Thursday at Edu Orita, Ogun state where Anene was being prepared to travel with some drugs to Qatar, same day on board a Qatar airline flight from Lagos.
He said at the time of their arrest, 1.8 kilogrammes cannabis, electronic weighing scale and other illicit substances were found on them.

Meanwhile, in another interdiction operation by operatives im Lagos, a 50-year-old Sunday Adediran, was arrested last Wednesday with 20 kilogrammes cannabis sativa found in one of the rooms in his house at Mushin Olosha, Lagos State.