OPERATIVES of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency on Tuesday night stormed the headquarters of Arik Air in Ikeja Lagos following the arrest in London of a crew member of the airline for allegedly being in possession of cocaine.
The Arik crew member, identified by the anti-narcotics agency as Chika Egwu Udensi, was arrested on Monday night by operatives of the United Kingdom Border Force with 20 kilos of cocaine in London.
The NDLEA agents were said to have searched Udensi’s latest Range Rover parked on the airline’s premises. Arik spokesman, Adebanji Ola, confirmed the
visit by the NDLEA’s operatives.
Udensi was arrested at the London Heathrow Airport shortly after an Arik Air flight W3101 that departed from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, touched down in the UK.
Udensi’s arrest came barely two years after two crew members of the Arik Air were similarly nabbed by the UK Border Force in London.
Officials of the NDLEA on Tuesday put the street value of the drug found with the suspect at £350,000 (N105m). The Arik Air on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of its
cabin crew member by the UK Border Force.
The airline, in a statement which read like the one issued after the 2013 incident, said it had commenced investigation into how the banned substance got into the suspect’s possession.
In December 2011, another Arik Air cabin crew, Ms. Chinwendu Uwakaonyenma Ogbonnaya, was similarly arrested in London for drug trafficking. She was subsequently jailed for five years in London.
Also in 2013, precisely on May 21, two female crew members of the airline were arrested at the same Heathrow Airport in London for suspected drug trafficking.
The two had been arrested after a package of drugs was discovered by Border Force officers on a bus which had been used to transport air crew. The street value of their haul as of the time had been put at around £600,000.
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