NDLEA arrests wanted drug kingpin at Lagos airport while en route to Umrah

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) have apprehended a suspected drug baron, 40-year-old Yussuf Abayomi Azeez, at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) in Lagos.

Azeez was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Saudi Arabia for Umrah. According to the NDLEA, the suspect had been under months of intense surveillance and intelligence tracking due to his alleged involvement in major drug trafficking operations.

The agency disclosed that Azeez was previously arrested and prosecuted for drug-related offences in the United Kingdom but absconded after jumping bail and sneaking into Nigeria to continue his illegal activities.

“Soon after settling down in Lagos, he set up a massive clandestine laboratory in the Lekki area of the state for the production of Colorado, a deadly synthetic cannabis and other illicit substances,” NDLEA’s spokesperson Femi Babafemi said on Sunday.

Babafemi further explained that Azeez walked into the waiting hands of NDLEA operatives at the Lagos airport while attempting to board his flight to Saudi Arabia for Umrah at about 6:30am on Thursday, November 6, 2025.

“He was swiftly driven to his 17 Vincent Eku Street, Ogombo, Lekki, clandestine laboratory which has been under surveillance for a while,” the NDLEA’s spokesman said.

He further said Azeez was at the time of his arrest, in company of another suspect, 43-year-old Abideen Kekere-Ekun.

“Inside the massive building, operatives from the agency’s Directorate of Forensic and Chemical Monitoring were able to dismantle all installed laboratory equipment, precursor chemicals and already produced illicit substances including Colorado, all weighing 148.3 kilograms,” Babafemi said.

In another development, NDLEA operatives in conjunction with men of Nigeria Customs Service and other security agencies on Friday, November 7, discovered 105.5kg Molly, a designers drug and 500grams of methamphetamine during a joint examination of a shipment at the Sifax bonded terminal in Okota, Lagos.

Also in Niger State, NDLEA operatives on Thursday, November 6, arrested a 35-year-old Ibrahim Mohammed in a Volvo truck marked GRZ 872 XA along Kainji-Wawa road while conveying 87,000 pills of tramadol and 72kg of skunk, a strain of cannabis.