NDLEA raids Edo forests, destroys 317 tons of cannabis storage, and arrests four people.

A group of cannabis syndicates operating in the Opuje forests of Edo State, where vast warehouses and tents storing more than 317.4 metric tons of the psyllid were located, were dealt a fatal blow by NDLEA agents just hours after the agency’s chairman and chief executive officer, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd), threatened to make life difficult for drug barons and cartels in the new year if they did not give up the unlawful

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NewsReport gathered that at least one police impersonator, Omoruan Theophilus, 37, who paraded as a Police Inspector to convey the drugs from the forests to the cities, and three others, Aigberuan Jacob, 42; Ekeinde Anthony Zaza, 53; and Naomi Patience Ohiewere, 42, were arrested in connection with the drugs.

The Opuje community in Owan West Local Government Area, Edo State, is notorious for cannabis cultivation, where cartels invest huge resources, cutting down economic trees in forest reserves and cultivating cannabis on a large scale that runs into hundreds of hectares. After harvest, they build warehouses inside the forest reserves and employ the services of armed youths to protect the warehouses 24/7.

In the same vein, the agency, on Thursday, January 19, through intelligence received from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States, busted a criminal syndicate involved in the trafficking of fake USD currency in Lagos. During a combined operation carried out by NDLEA operatives with their EFCC colleagues, a total of $269,000 in counterfeit US dollars were recovered from the syndicate in the Oniru Shoprite area of Lekki, Lagos, where three suspects were arrested.

While commending the officers involved in the two special operations in Edo and Lagos for their professionalism and commitment, Marwa has since directed that the fake dollars recovered and suspects arrested in the Lekki operation be immediately transferred to the EFCC for possible prosecution