NDLEA Arrest Billionaire Drug Lord With Abba Kyari Links

The NDLEA has given facts about Chief Afam Ukatu’s detention.

NDLEA said the millionaire is behind the N3bn tramadol transaction involving suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari.

Update: The agency has traced and detained Afam Ukatu.

His arrest came after months of monitoring and dodging arrest, according to the agency’s spokeswoman, Femi Babafemi.

According to Babafemi, Afam Ukatu was apprehended on a trip to Abuja on Wednesday, April 13 at the MM2 terminal of Lagos airport, Ikeja.

According to him, he was a big importer of huge consignments of various brands and high doses of tramadol hydrochloride, ranging from 120mg to 225mg to 250mg.

He utilized his pharmaceutical and plastic manufacturing enterprises to bring illegal pharmaceuticals into Nigeria. Aside from running 103 bank accounts, most of which are used to launder cash.

A year ago, on May 4, 2021, five boxes of tramadol 225mg were confiscated from his workers, which he was selling to undercover police officers from the then Kyari-led IRT of the Nigeria Police Force, Lagos State.

“Tramadol was negotiated for N17m per carton, compared to the then black market pricing of N18m to N20m in Lagos.

In addition to Pius Enidom and Sunday Ibekwete, the suspects took Kyari’s men to Mallinson’s warehouse in Ojota, Lagos, where the IRT team confiscated 197 more boxes of tramadol 225mg. Mallinson’s 202 cartons of tramadol confiscated in one day were worth N3bn.

After three weeks, the Kyari IRT team only delivered 12 cartons of tramadol to the NDLEA’s Lagos headquarters, leaving 190 cartons unaccounted for.

“Anti-narcotic officials of the agency apprehended Ukatu at the Lagos airport on April 13, 2022.

“Kyari and four senior team members are already on trial in Abuja for a separate but comparable offense.”