NDLEA NABS WANTED DRUG KINGPIN AFTER SEVEN-YEARS SURVEILLANCE

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, have nabbed a suspected drug baron who has been on the run for seven years.

NDLEA Director of Media and Advocacy, FEMI BABAFEMI, identified the suspect as sixty-year-old OKPARA PAUL CHIGOZIE, saying that he was caught while attempting to move large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to the South-East and other parts of the country.

BABAFEMI disclosed in a statement that OKPARA had been on the wanted list of the NDLEA since 2019 before he was eventually nabbed on Sunday 13th July 2025, at No. 72, Micheal Ojo Street, Isheri in Ojo area of Lagos State.

The NDLEA spokesman said the breakthrough followed the interception of hard drugs consignments at the Ilasamaja area, along the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway.

He said NDLEA officers involved in the early morning operation, arrested fifty-one-year-old ACHEBE KENNETH NNAMDI while heading to Onitsha, Anambra State in a white Toyota Sienna vehicle.

He said with the help of NDLEA sniffer dogs, which were brought in to search the vehicle, officers discovered seven-point-six kilograms of cocaine and nine hundred grams of methamphetamine hidden in the body compartments of the space bus.

FEMI BABAFEMI said a follow-up operation was later carried out at OKPARA’s residence in Isheri where additional one-point-eight kilograms of cocaine and one-point-three kilograms of methamphetamine were recovered.