The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has arrested a wanted 61-year-old drug kingpin and Lagos celebrity, Alhaja Aishat Feyisara Ajoke Elediye, popularly known as “Iya Ruka,” on New Year’s Day in her mansion at Okota, Lagos, following the interception of a truckload illicit drug consignment from her staff member same day.
According to the Director, Media and Advocacy, NDLEA Headquarters, Abuja, Femi Babafemi, in a statement in Abuja, the woman also known in the drug underworld as “Iya Ruka”, or Alhaja Ajoke, in social circle, had her identity covered for years while operating secretly a drug cartel from Mushin, Lagos.
Babafemi said the cat was, however, let out of the bag on January 1 when the agency’s operatives intercepted a white Izuzu truck carrying 44 jumbo sacks containing 1,540 kilogrammes of imported cannabis driven by one of her staff members, Abideen Adio, 41.
A dealer in imported fabrics and shoes from China, Ajoke’s is also a big illicit drug trader and member of the influential Iyalaje of Blessing Sisters, Lagos, Babafemi added.
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In another major operation, the agency’s officers arrested a United States-trained Hollywood and Nollywood filmmaker, Emeka Emmanuel Mbadiwe, who is also a motivational speaker at his Lekki Hotel room.
Mbadiwe was arrested after his partner, Uzoekwe Ugochukwu James, was nabbed earlier same day at a warehouse in Ajao Estate, Isolo, where he was sent by Mbadiwe to collect a shipment of 33 parcels of Loud, a strong strain of cannabis.
Babafemi said the drugs weighing 17.30 kilogrammes arrived at the Import Shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja last December from the U.S. on a Delta Airline flight, concealed in large wooden boxes.
Others arrested were a young graduate Khadijat Abdulraheem, 24, and a 20-year-old student of the University of Ilorin, Ayomide Morakinyo, at Tanke University of Ilorin Road, Oke Odo, Ilorin for producing and selling drug laced cupcakes to students. Forty-two pieces of drugged cakes were recovered from them in their apartments.