The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA announced on Friday that its operatives had intercepted another batch of seven containers containing one million two hundred and twenty-nine thousand four hundred bottles of codeine syrup worth over nine billion eight hundred and thirty-five million two hundred thousand Naira (N9,835,200,000.00) at the Onne ports.
A statement from Femi Babafemi, Director of Media and Ad declared “The latest seizure made on Thursday 18th July 2024 is the fourth and last set of such consignments that have been under the watchlist of the Agency’s Maritime Special Operations Unit Targeting Team, which worked in partnership with the Port Harcourt Ports Command of the Agency and other security agencies”.
“The agencies included the Nigeria Customs Service for a 100 percent joint examination of the targeted containers.
“This followed credible intelligence and months of diligent tracking of the consignments from their port of departure.
“At the joint examination of the containers with other security agencies on Thursday, all seven containers were found bearing a total of 8,774 cartons of codeine-based cough syrup, with 1,229,400 bottles weighing 184,410 kilograms.
“A breakdown of the shipments that came from India via the Maersk Vigo Vessel shows that the container marked SEKU 6439421 has 875 cartons with 175,000 bottles of codeine weighing 26,250kg.
“Other items in the container include 70 cartons of chilli cutters and 55 cartons of hyregra tablets weighing 1,100 kg.
“Four other containers marked: TRHU 515117; CMAU 7877125; CMAU 8533700; and CMAU 3882205 contain 175,000 bottles of the same substance each, in addition to other items such as chilli cutters, cartons of Hyregra tablets, and diclofenac used to mask the shipments.
