Cocaine packed in unthinkable packages

Nigerians were recently stunned when some neatly packed and appetising roasted chickens, which had arrived the country from Brazil, aboard a Turkish Airline flight from Sao Paulo, were discovered to contain hard drugs.  The drugs were concealed in the roasted chickens, with the intention to fool security officials. It was a new way drug traffickers devised to pull the wool on the eyes of security personnel at the airport and bring in hard drugs.

The kingpin of the drugs syndicate, Mr. Vincent Chegini Chinweuwa, had revealed that it took three days to package the roasted chickens for onward transmission to Nigeria, adding: “I was confident that the drug will not be detected. I’m surprised I’ve been caught.” A conservative estimate of the street value of the drugs, which was impounded, was put at about N24 million.

Airport Commandant of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, Mr. Hamza Umar, had said of this: “We discovered 2.655kg of cocaine inside roasted chickens.  It is a remarkable seizure because no one would have imagined cocaine worth several millions inside roasted chickens.”

Investigation revealed that drug traffickers have, indeed, devised various new ways to bring in their merchant of death into the country. Sometimes, they are caught. Some other times, they succeed in beating the security dragnet at the airports and borders.

Speaking on this, Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, said: “Drug barons are becoming more and more sophisticated in drug concealment, as recent discoveries show.  The essence of drug concealment is to avoid detection and seizure.  In order to prevent huge financial losses, arrests and prosecution, drug barons go the extra mile in hiding their drugs.