The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency says it has dismantled a major cross-border drug trafficking operation following the interception of two long trailers found to be carrying a combined 1.63 million pills of tramadol. The agency described the seizure as one of the larger hauls of the painkiller it has recorded on the route in recent weeks.
According to the agency, the intelligence-led operation targeted a transnational syndicate that had been smuggling the substance from Togo, through Benin Republic and into Nigeria. The consignments were bound for Kano, in the north of the country, where the tablets are often diverted for street sale and abuse.
The first of the two trailers was stopped on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on 2 July. Officers recovered 853,000 pills from the vehicle and arrested its driver, a 22-year-old man named as Jabir Kabiru, as the truck made its way north towards Kano.
Two days later, operatives tracked a second trailer travelling along the same route. Inside, they found a further 777,000 pills, bringing the total to 1.63 million, with another driver, Muhammed Nuhu, also aged 22, taken into custody at the scene.
In both cases, the agency said, the tablets had been concealed in specially built compartments hidden beneath the cargo floors of the trucks, an arrangement designed to keep the drugs out of sight during routine checks along the highway.
Investigators say the two interceptions were not isolated. According to the agency, the trucks and their consignments, together with an earlier seizure recorded on 21 June, have all been traced to the same international trafficking network operating across the Togo, Benin Republic and Nigeria corridor.
The agency said the arrested drivers had been handed over for further investigation as officers work to identify and reach the other members of the network behind the shipments. It presented the operation as part of its wider effort to disrupt the flow of the painkiller into the country through its neighbours.