How Man Used Fake Police Identity To Smuggle Drugs

For years, a 49-year-old man has moved illicit drugs across state lines by presenting himself as a senior police officer whenever he encountered security checkpoints.

The man, identified by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) as Godwin Emeka, allegedly posed as a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), complete with a forged police identification card, in an attempt to avoid scrutiny while transporting drug consignments.

But the strategy ended on Wednesday, September 16, when NDLEA operatives stopped him on the Benin-Onitsha Expressway in Asaba, Delta State.

Inside his silver Toyota Sienna bus, the operatives allegedly discovered 292.48 kilogrammes of skunk, a potent strain of cannabis.

According to the NDLEA, an accomplice, a 39-year-old man, was also arrested during the operation.

The arrest has brought to light the length to which suspected drug traffickers go to evade law enforcement, with the NDLEA saying the suspect had for some time presented himself as a police officer to escape checks at security points.

The agency’s director of media and advocacy, Femi Babafemi, said the investigation showed that the suspect had been using the identity of “a Deputy Superintendent of Police” and a forged identification card while allegedly transporting illicit consignments.

That cover was eventually broken when NDLEA operatives intercepted the vehicle and discovered the cannabis concealed inside.

The arrest formed part of a wider series of operations by the agency across Lagos, Edo, Niger, Delta, Ondo, Gombe, Imo and the Federal Capital Territory, during which more than 1.3 million pills and capsules of tramadol and other opioids, as well as about 6,000kg of cannabis, were seized.

The combined street value of the seized drugs was put at more than N3.4 billion by the NDLEA.