In yet another attempt to utilize phone charger import routes, suspected drug traffickers provide a suspicious shipment containing cocaine hidden inside phone chargers which was intercepted in the country by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
The seizure underscores the increasingly high level of ingenuity used by drug trafficking organizations to pack legal or commonplace household and electronics products with drugs in an attempt to avoid detection.
The report states the cocaine was discovered by targeted examination of the shipment by NDLEA operatives. It is alleged the drugs were hidden in phone chargers and so the shipment was deemed to be innocent of electronic accessories.
The interception stopped an alleged journey from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia and more served as an illustration of how intelligence operations can be used to identify concealed narcotics at points of exit.
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In recent months and years, the NDLEA has been finding traffickers encasing cocaine in items considered unlikely to be used to cover the drug up, according to the Washington Post. It seized a businessman last month after discovering the liquid cocaine in shirts and towels brought from Brazil in June.
In another July operation, the agency smuggled food parcels bound for the United Kingdom that contain 3.30kg cocaine. During the operation, a businessman and some people handling the shipment got arrested.
The agency has also maintained huge arrest records in its airports and seaports in Nigeria. NDLEA operatives arrested a 38-year-old business woman as she came off-boards an aircraft heading for China at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos carrying 7.5kg of cocaine in professionally-made false compartments in her luggage in June.
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The most recent interception follows other major attempts made by the agency to cut into the international drug trafficking syndicates operating through Nigeria. Saudi Arabia continues to be one of the countries traffickers try to smuggle illicit drugs in via messengers and hidden packages.
The NDLEA a number of times have cautioned travellers and members of the public to refrain from accepting packages from any person they do not know or by accepting their luggage and personal items they will allow something to be transported in them which they will not be able to determine the contents.
Its focus has shifted more and more to supply reduction and disruption of trafficking networks, such as those involved in sourcing, packaging, financing and transporting narcotics as well.
It also highlights the need for joint efforts by the Nigerian law enforcement agencies, the Nigerian airports and the couriers as well as international partners to ensure the monitoring of suspicious shipments and to curb the importation of drugs into the global market.
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Especially with the arrival of the NDLEA led by Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (rtd.) has affirmed that its efforts in dismantling trafficking network revolve around intelligence gathering, interdiction and prosecution. The agency has doubled down its War Against Drug Abuse propaganda and awareness programmes at the same time.
The new interception was without much consequence for the suspected shipment of drugs, but investigators will now be looking to identify those involved in the trip as well as the source of the narcotics and to track other participants of the trafficking operation.
Another sign of the fact that drug trafficking is constantly evolving is that the seizure.
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The real hurdle for the enforcers is keeping up with these networks, either with better intelligence, more sophisticated screening and more coordinated, cross-border investigations.
