The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a wanted suspected notorious kingpin, Wasiu Sanni Gbolahan, popularly known as Teacher, who recruits mules for a cartel.
The 64-year-old Gbolahan is a housing and property agent, with seven children and four wives, one of whom is now late.
The NDLEA also arrested a 56-year-old trafficker, Lawal Lateef Oyenuga, who was on a mission to deliver 400grams of the class A drug concealed in a pair of palm sandals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said the NDLEA operatives attached to the screening point of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos had on Thursday, November 24 intercepted Oyenuga with a pair of black palm sandals packed in the luggage he was going with to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia via Addis Ababa on an Ethiopian Airways flight.
A thorough examination of the sandals revealed they were used to conceal two parcels of cocaine weighing 400 grams.
In his statement, Oyenuga claimed he was recruited to traffic the drug by Gbolahan popularly known as Teacher, adding that he was first given some pellets of cocaine to swallow but when he couldn’t do that, then he was given the ones concealed in the palm sandals.
He said he resorted to the criminal trade to raise money to pay an examination fee for his daughter who is in Senior Secondary School Class 3.
The NDLEA said the agency’s database revealed that Gbolahan had been linked to some previous attempts to traffic cocaine to Saudi Arabia and Dubai in UAE.
He was earlier named as the one who recruited a BRT driver, Bolajoko Muyiwa Babalola, for Lagos socialite and owner of Adekaz Hotels, Alhaji Ademola Afolabi Kazeem (a.k.a Alhaji Abdallah Kazeem Muhammed) to traffic drugs to Dubai.
Bolajoko was arrested on June 27 while taking 900 grams of cocaine to Dubai while Ademola Kazeem was nabbed on Thursday, November 10, barely 10 days after he was declared wanted by NDLEA.
A follow-up operation in the early hours of Friday, November 25 led to the arrest of the kingpin, Teacher, who specialised in recruiting mules for drug barons in Lagos and its environs at his residence located in Ikorodu area of Lagos.
Credit: Leadership