NDLEA Arrests India-Bound Nursing Student with 76 Wraps of Cocaine.

NDLEA Arrests India-Bound Nursing Student with 76 Wraps of Cocaine.

By Fly Cable News

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a 26-year-old nursing student, Esther Onyinyechi Uzodinma, for attempting to smuggle 76 wraps of cocaine.

Esther, a 200-level student at Noida International University, Uttar Pradesh, India, was apprehended on January 17, 2025, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA) just hours before boarding her return flight to India.

According to NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi, Esther was staying at the Royal Park Hotel in Kano, where she had been preparing to ingest the 76 pellets of cocaine. Her arrest followed the interception of 31-year-old Cosmas Okorie on the Okene-Lokoja highway in Kogi State on January 16.

Okorie, traveling in a commuter bus from Lagos to Kano, was found with an audio speaker containing the concealed cocaine, weighing 1.34 kilograms. A swift operation in Kano led to Esther’s arrest later that day.

In her statement, Esther revealed she had been recruited by a drug cartel in India, which financed her trip to Nigeria for the holidays. To avoid alerting her parents, she stayed in a hotel in Enugu for two weeks before being flown to Abuja and then Kano. There, she was instructed to swallow the cocaine pellets before boarding a Qatar Airways flight to India.

The NDLEA continues to intensify its efforts to combat drug trafficking across the country.