A 41-year-old Canadian woman, Adrienne Munju, has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. The arrest took place on October 3 during a routine inspection of passengers arriving on a KLM flight from Canada. Munju was found in possession of a large consignment of synthetic cannabis, commonly known as ‘Canadian Loud.’
According to a statement released by the NDLEA’s spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, Munju had hidden 74 parcels of the illicit substance weighing a total of 35.2 kilograms in two of her three bags. This was her first visit to Nigeria, and she admitted to being recruited online to smuggle the drugs for a payment of 10,000 Canadian dollars. She claimed the money was meant to cover her ongoing master’s degree expenses in Canada.
In addition to the arrest of Munju, the NDLEA also seized over 13 million pills of opioids, including Tramadol and other dangerous substances, at the Port Harcourt Ports in Rivers State. The drugs, concealed in containers shipped from India, were recovered during inspections carried out by NDLEA operatives and Nigerian Customs on October 2 and 3. The recovered drugs, valued at over ₦9 billion, included 338,253 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup.
On the same day, at the Tincan seaport in Lagos, another consignment of ‘Canadian Loud,’ weighing 50kg, was intercepted. The shipment, packed in 100 parcels concealed in a container along with imported vehicles, had been cleared from a bonded terminal in Ikorodu. The NDLEA traced the consignment to a warehouse where it was discovered in one of the vehicles. A suspect, Abubakar Shuaibu Ibrahim, has been taken into custody in connection with the discovery.
The NDLEA’s operations continued across the country. In Taraba, officers intercepted a commercial bus on October 3 carrying 80 blocks of cannabis hidden in bags of garri. Two suspects, Pako Thomas and Emmanuel Anyigor, were arrested, while another suspect, Chibuzor Okafor, was caught with similar amounts of cannabis in Wukari.
In Lagos, on October 4, a suspect identified as Bolanle Ajenifuja was arrested with 700 liters of a substance called “skuchies,” a dangerous cocktail of local chapman and illicit drugs. Additionally, NDLEA operatives raided cannabis farms along the Edo and Ondo border, destroying over three hectares of the psychoactive substance.
