Posted by By Alex Olise, Staff Reporter on
A FEMALE manager of one of the new generation banks in the country has been arrested for drug trafficking by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
A FEMALE manager of one of the new generation banks in the country has been arrested for drug trafficking by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
The woman, 40, was paraded in Lagos yesterday. She was arrested on January 20 with cocaine concealed in her pants at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.
She was paraded alongside 24 other suspected drug traffickers by the airport's area commander of the agency, Alhaji Abdullahi Danburam.
But the NDLEA refused to disclose the name of the bank for security reasons. Even the suspect failed to disclose the name of the bank. But an investigation by The Guardian shows that she is a branch manager of one of the fast-growing new generation banks in Lagos.
She said she was lured into the illegal deal by her friend, a customer of the bank who lodged huge sums of money with the bank.
Apart from the substance she concealed in her pants, the lady had cocaine weighing 1.025 kilogrammes in her stomach.
The banker excreted part of the drug yesterday shortly before the parade, an official told The Guardian after the briefing.
Others paraded included two men who were arrested on January 4 and January 5.
The two men were recently released from prison in Addis Ababa and Pakistan.
Also paraded was a 60-year-old man who was arrested on January 13 with 1.60 kilogrammes of cocaine, which he secreted from his stomach.
One other woman, 41, and man, 35, were both arrested on February 5 during the outward clearance of British Airways.
They had ingested 935 grammes and 1.10 kilogrammes of cocaine each.
The Agency's Director of Prosecution, Mr. Femi Oloruntoba, told journalists that the NDLEA had convicted 900 drug offenders across the country in 2004 alone.
To deter others from going into the illicit deal, he said the agency would soon sponsor a bill in the National Assembly to increase the jail term from one year to three years.
The United States' government has announced $1.6 million reward for any one who could provide information on a suspected drug trafficker.`