No fewer than 25,000,000.00 pills of tapentadol and 350,000 bottles of codeine-based syrup have been intercepted by the operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at the Tincan Port Complex in Lagos, reports page3news.com.ng
The tapentadol, an opioid, is three times stronger than tramadol.
According to the agency’s mouthpiece, Femi Babafemi in a statement, the seizures were made on Tuesday, 17 September and Friday, 20 September 2024 from three containers which had been on the watchlist of the NDLEA following processed intelligence.
Babafemi, in the statement, said that: “the 25 million pills of tapentadol have an estimated street value of N13,725,000,000.00 while the codeine consignment has an estimated street value of N2,450,000,000.00, bringing the total value of the seizures to N16,175,000,000.00.
“The tapentadol consignment, packed in 500 cartons, was discovered in one of the containers on Tuesday, 17 September, while another container examined same day contained 175,000 bottles of Barcadin cough syrup with codeine packed in 875 cartons.
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“The third container containing 175,000 bottles of CSC cough syrup with codeine was examined on Friday, 20 September”.
In another development, operatives of the Lagos State Strategic Command of the NDLEA, on Friday, 20 September, arrested an 80-year-old grandfather, Pa Aremu Shojobi with 14 kilograms of cannabis at his home in Iyana Ipaja area of the state.
In the NDLEA statement, the octogenarian claimed that he has been in the business of selling illicit drugs for 25 years.
He further claimed that he gets his supplies from Benin Republic and sells to his customers from his residence.
