The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), said yesterday that the billionaire drug baron fingered in the N3 billion tramadol deal that involved the embattled suspended leader of the Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Abba Kyari, is now in their net.
A statement by the Spokesman of the NDLEA, Mr. Femi Babafemi, alleged that a “Billionaire Drug Baron, Mr. Afam Mallinson Emmanuel Ukatu, who is behind the N3 billion tramadol deal involving the embattled suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, has been arrested by operatives of the NDLEA.”
He disclosed that the arrest was after months of surveillance and Ukatu’s evasion of arrest, adding that Ukatu who is Chairman of Mallinson Group of Companies was eventually nabbed onboard a flight to Abuja at the MM2 terminal of the Lagos airport on Wednesday, April 13.
Babafemi alleged that investigations have revealed that Ukatu has been a major importer of large consignments of different brands and high dosages of illicit tramadol hydrochloride, ranging from 120mg, 200mg, 225mg and 250mg.
He said Ukatu owned pharmaceutical and plastic manufacturing companies, which he used as a cover to import illicit drugs into the country, in addition to operating 103 bank accounts that were alegedly used for money laundering.
He disclosed that Ukatu came under watch last year after five cartons of tramadol 225mg were seized from his staff on May 4, 2021, when he sent them to sell to undercover police officers (unknown to Ukatu) from the then Kyari-led IRT of the Nigeria Police, Ikeja, Lagos.
Babafemi said that the price of a carton of tramadol was negotiated at N17 million each as against the then black market value that ranged between N18 million and N20 million per carton in Lagos.
He further alleged that after the arrest of Ukatu’s staff, Mr. Pius Enidom and Mr. Sunday Ibekwete, Kyari’s men were then led by the suspects to Mallinson’s warehouse at Ojota in Lagos where 197 additional cartons of tramadol 225mg were seized by the IRT Team, adding that the monetary value of the 202 cartons of the seized products from Mallinson in one day was over N3 billion.
He alleged that 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, and after over eight months of following the lead, anti-narcotics officers of the agency eventually arrested Ukatu at the Lagos airport.
Babafemi recalled that Kyari and four top members of his team are already facing trial for a different but similar offence at a Federal High Court in Abuja.
