SaharaReporters on Friday reported that a traveller had caught a staff member of Pathfinder attempting to plant illicit drugs in his luggage
The owner of illicit drugs that a staff member of a flight service company, Pathfinder attempted to plant in a traveller’s luggage at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, has been arrested.
SaharaReporters on Friday reported that a traveller had caught a staff member of Pathfinder attempting to plant illicit drugs in his luggage.
A viral video shows when the man slapped the Pathfinder worker and asked him to explain the content of the package while the official knelt and apologised for his crime.
The viral video shows other airport workers interrogating the flight services official.
When slapped by the traveller, the flight service officer tried to explain how someone paid him to find a way to send the drugs to someone outside Nigeria.
Femi Babafemi, the spokesperson for the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Sunday said the owner of the tramadol consignment, Okosun Paul Punitt, was arrested on Friday.
Babafemi said in a statement, “In the same vein, NDLEA operatives on Friday 19th January arrested one Okosun Paul Punitt, the consignee of a consignment of tramadol concealed in a bottle of dietary supplements, which a staff of Pathfinder International Ltd, Ajuzieogu Mac-Elvis Ugochukwu attempted sending through an intending passenger on Ibom Air to Accra, Ghana at the Lagos airport on Tuesday 16th January.
“A video of the face-off between the passenger and Ajuzieogu later went viral after the vigilant passenger suspected the consignment contained illicit substances.
“Both Ajuzieogu and the exhibit were later transferred to NDLEA on Thursday 18th January by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN for investigation. Preliminary findings by NDLEA showed the parcel contained 50 pills of tramadol 225mg concealed in a bottle of dietary supplements. A follow-up operation by the Agency led to the arrest of Okosun upon his return from Ghana on Friday. He has in his statement confirmed ownership of the drug.”
The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) had said Ugochukwu was not their worker.
Also, Babafemi on Friday confirmed to SaharaReporters that the suspect in the video was not a staff member of FAAN but an official of a flight service company he identified as Pathfinder.
Babafemi said, “Not that he planted something in the person’s luggage. What happened is that what they normally do is to approach passengers travelling to help them deliver consignments to some other persons where they are going to and I think that was what happened in this case.
“But without letting the person know, I think like what we have been trying to educate people about on not accepting parcels and packages from people they don’t know, the passenger was vigilant enough to insist on knowing what was inside the parcel before he accepted it.
“Both the consignment and the suspect are already with the NDLEA. We have tested the two substances and formal investigation is still going on but one of the substances tested positive to tramadol and the other one is a supplement. We have arrested a lot of people like that.”
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