The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a Kenyan national while trying to smuggle 6.5 kilograms of Cocaine into Nigeria through the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA) Abuja.
The suspect, Angela Wairimu, 33, was arrested on arrival from South Africa aboard an Ethiopian Airline flight to Abuja, in what the agency officials described as the biggest seizure in recent times.
The agency’s spokesman, Jonah Achema, said yesterday in a statement that some of the illicit substance was concealed in the false bottom of a travelling bag which also contained two wrapped parcels of the same illicit drug, and which the single mother of two carried as hand luggage.
“Wairimu who shuttles between Kenya and South Africa claimed to be a modelling expert and a trader in clothes and cosmetics. According to her, a friend in South Africa approached her to assist an unknown person to deliver the briefcase containing wears in Nigeria which was brought to her at the airport through an errand boy. She was to deliver the consignment to the husband of the sender who was to meet her at the NAIA, Abuja.
“She claimed to be on her second trip to Nigeria to procure home-made body beauty products and local fabrics for her enterprise called La Model in South Africa and Kenya. She denied being under any financial inducement but confessed that her daughter was suffering from acute leukemia which put her under financial pressure,” Achema said.
Achema quoted Hamisu Lawan, NDLEA Commander in NAIA, to have said that the seizure was the biggest cocaine shipment in recent times made by the command.
