The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has today announced that its men have finally arrested a Drug Baron “Chief Afam Mallinson Emmanuel Ukatu”, Chairman of Mallinson Group, who has been on its wanted list. The Suspect is believed to be the Billionaire responsible for a drugs case that landed super cop, Abba Kyari in prison awaiting trial. According to a statement released by the Drug office through its Media Director, Femi Babafemi, Ukatu is behind the N3billion Tramadol deal involving Abba Kyari.
Abba Kyari, a suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, is popularly known for his social media outing in bursting crime syndicate through his office, the intelligence Response Team, IRT.
Ukatu was captured at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos by a surveillance team of the NDLEA after a series of him evading arrest.
NDLEA disclosed that the suspect is the major importer of a large consignment of different brands of hard drugs into the country, ranging from Tramadol 120mg, 200mg, 225mg, and 250mg.
Ukatu operated a pharmaceutical and a plastics company which he uses as a shield for importing hard drugs into the country, Nigeria.
It was also revealed the suspect operates about 103 accounts for laundering illicit money most of which are the drug money, the NDLEA said.
The suspect comes under the NDLEA radar in the year 2021 when about 5catons of tramadol 225miligrams was intercepted from his staff on 4th May 2021.
His staff was lured into selling the tramadol to undercover police officers unknown to them who were planted by Kyar from IRT.
The statement said, the price of a carton of Tramadol was negotiated at N17million each as against the then black market value that ranged between N18million and N20million a carton.
After the arrest of Ukatu’s staff, Pius Enidom, and Sunday Ibekwete, Kyari’s men were led to Mallinson’s warehouse at Ojota in Lagos where 197 additional cartons of Tramadol 225mg were seized by the IRT.
Consequently, the monetary value of the 202 cartons of Tramadol seized from Mallinson in one day was over N3 billion.
Three weeks after the seizure, the Kyari’s IRT team transferred only 12 cartons of the Tramadol with one truck and a suspect to the Lagos Command of the NDLEA, leaving 190 cartons unaccounted for, the statement concluded.