The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Edo Command, says it has busted a suspected cannabis warehouses in Ukpuje forest in Owan West LGA of the State, having an estimated street value of more than N1.4 billion.
The NDLEA State’s commander, Buba Wakawa, who announced this at a news conference in Benin, said that the suspected illicit drug village had four large cannabis warehouses with 233,778 kilogrammes of dried weeds suspected to be cannabis.
Mr Wakawa also said that seven suspected drug barons believed to be running the cannabis trafficking syndicate had equally been apprehended.
“This is the largest single concentration of cannabis discovered by the command,” he said.
He gave the breakdown of the substance to include 318 bags of 80 kilogrammes each and 15,853 bags of 13 kilogrammes each.
Wakawa added that while the quantity seized weighed 2,249 kilogrammes, others weighing 231,529 kilogrammes were destroyed.
The NDLEA State’s Commander ascribed the success of the operation to the enabling environment created by the new chairman of the agency, retired Brig -Gen. Buba Marwa.
According to him, the seizures represented a large chunk of the previous cannabis planting season.
“They planted, watered, harvested and processed the drug only for us to dispossess them of their labour, because their action is criminal”.
“The warehouses are located in the heart of the forest, yet we were able to uncover them based on intelligence gathering,” he explained.
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