NDLEA nab major distributor of psychotropic substances in Abia State

The Abia State command of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) says it has arrested a man whose name is yet-to-be identified at Ariaria International Market who is accused of being one of the major distributors of banned psychotropic substances in the state.

Our reporter gathered that personnel of the NDLEA after months of undercover raided a hidden warehouse owned by the distributor where they recover about 60, 000 tablets of tramadol of 250-100miligram.

The NDLEA personnel also recovered over 50 bottles of codeine syrups, 2000 tablets of Diazepan and 1500 tablets of Rophenol.

Recall that the federal government had banned sale of psychotropic drugs in open markets due to the rate of abuse of such drugs by the youths in particular.

The Nation gathered that since the ban on the harmful drugs by the federal government, some of the drug sellers in various markets in the state have resorted to hiding the banned drugs from their shops and when a customer demands for it, they would go to their warehouse off the sight of the preying eyes of law enforcement agents to bring such drugs to their customers.

Another ugly trend in the state, according to the findings of our reporter is that many youths since the ban on the sale of the psychotropic substance in the open market are now taking over dose of cough syrups as substitute to the banned substances in order to get the same stimulation they get from taking tramadol, codeine etc.

Confirming the arrest of the drug merchant, the State Commander of NDLEA, Bamidele Akingbade said that the personnel of the agency who have been acting on intelligence over some months swooped on the Ariaria drug merchant.

According to Akingbade, “we have been working on information relating to his activities for the past four months, just to unravel sources of illicit psychotropic drugs into the state.

“At the end we were able to trace his hidden warehouse where he hides the illicit drugs because he doesn’t keep them in his open chemist store.

“With luck on our side, we succeeded in seizing the much that we could notwithstanding that he has sold some of the drugs before we carried out the raid of his hidden warehouse.

“The legal Department of the agency (NDLEA) has taken over the matter because we have concluded investigation. So we expect that the suspect will be arraigned at the Federal High Court as soon as possible.

“The raid of the warehouse is part of our resolve to ensure that the youths in the state do not abuse substances and we want to use this opportunity to warn drug traffickers to leave the state as the command is determined to make Abia State very hot for them and inhabitable for them to do their business transactions.”