By Evelyn Usman

LAGOS—A 39-year-old father of two alleged to have been arrested at the verge of exporting 1.555kg of cocaine to Dubia, the United Arab Emirates, has told anti-narcotic agents that he went into drug trafficking to raise N200,000 to solve some family problems.

The suspect, Maduka Peter, an automobile parts dealer based in Aba, Abia State, according to Ahmadu Garba, the National Dug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, Airport Commander, was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA Lagos.

“Peter concealed 1.555kg of cocaine in his luggage on his way to Dubai on an Etihad flight,” the Commander stated.

During interrogation, Peter said: “I lost goods worth four million Naira few years ago and since then my life has been a shadow of itself. I smuggled the drug for two hundred thousand Naira to solve family problems.”

This is just as officials of NDLEA have uncovered new tricks by cartels to circumvent security checks with the arrest of a suspected drug trafficker, Roland Tochukwu, 37, who attempted to import 2.045kg of heroin from Nairobi, Kenya.

The heroin, said to have been concealed inside his luggage, was detected during screening of passengers on an Ethiopian Airline flight at the MMIA.

When searched, he was found in possession of a fake travel ticket, indicating that he was coming from China.

However, preliminary investigation by the anti-narcotics agency revealed that he deliberately replaced his ticket with a fake one which indicated that he was coming from China instead of Nairobi.

This new trick, as explained by Garba, “is because it is economically unwise to bring narcotics from China, where the price is higher than it is in Nigeria.”

Roland, a trader in Onitsha, Anambra State, said that his friend introduced him into drug trafficking.