The arrest of a Nigerian "billionaire
drug baron" has been announced by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency
(NDLEA).
The suspect is Mallinson Group Chairman
Chief Afam Mallinson Emmanuel Ukatu.
Femi Babafemi, the NDLEA Media Director,
said in a statement on Monday that he is behind the N3 billion Tramadol deal
involving Abba Kyari.
The Intelligence Response Team was led by
Kyari, a suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police (IRT).
After months of surveillance and evading
arrest, Ukatu was apprehended at the MM2 terminal of the Lagos airport in
Ikeja.
NDLEA claims to be a major importer of
large consignments of Tramadol Hydrochloride in various brands and high
dosages, including 120mg, 200mg, 225mg, and 250mg.
Ukatu owns pharmaceutical and plastic
manufacturing businesses that he allegedly used to smuggle illegal drugs into
Nigeria.
"This is on top of running 103 bank
accounts, the vast majority of which are used to launder money," Babafemi
explained.
Ukatu was placed under surveillance in
2021, a year after his staff was seized with five cartons of Tramadol 225mg on
May 4, 2021.
He'd sent them to Lagos to sell to
undercover cops (unknown to Ukatu) from the then-Kyari-led IRT.
The price of a carton of Tramadol was
negotiated at N17million each, compared to the black market value of N18million
to N20million per carton at the time.
Following the
arrest of Ukatu's employees, Pius Enidom and Sunday Ibekwete, Kyari's men were
led to Mallinson's warehouse in Ojota, Lagos, where the IRT seized 197
additional cartons of Tramadol 225mg.
The 202 cartons of Tramadol seized from
Mallinson in one day were worth more than N3 billion.
Three weeks after the seizure, the Kyari's
IRT team transferred only 12 cartons of Tramadol to the NDLEA's Lagos Command
with one truck and one suspect, leaving 190 cartons unaccounted for.