NDLEA agents intercept “Jihadi drug,” other mindbenders worth N1.5b hidden in Ghana soap

By our reporter 30.8.2026
A 49-year-old drug kingpin Akinbile Kazeem Aikins was arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) for attempting to smuggle in consignments of Captagon, popularly known as ‘Jihadi drug’, and other opioid pills worth over N1.5 billion.
He was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Ikeja, Lagos, on August 22 as he arrived from Accra, Ghana, aboard an African World Airlines flight.
A search of his carton of local bathing soap, popularly called “Ghana Soap”, led to the recovery of 47,200 pills of the illicit amphetamine drug, worth over N1.5 billion, concealed within blocks of soap.
Captagon, which is notoriously dubbed the ‘Jihadi drug’ because of its use in funding extremist activities in conflict zones, was first intercepted in Nigeria by the NDLEA in September 2021 at the Apapa Port in Lagos.
After his arrest, Aikins claimed he was meant to deliver the consignment in the North.
In another successful interdiction operation at the Lagos airport, no fewer than 3,900,030 tablets of Tramaking 225mg and Tapentadol 250mg, with a combined gross weight of 2,787.40 kilograms and a street value of more than N4.6 billion, were recovered from four abandoned consignments at the import shed of the MMIA.
Three of the consignments, comprising 900,000 tablets of Tramaking weighing 815.40kg, arrived aboard RwandAir flights from Bangladesh, while the fourth, comprising 3,000,030 tablets of Tapentadol weighing 1,972kg, arrived on Qatar Airways from Amsterdam.
The shipments, which had been placed under close watch after no one showed up to claim them, were formally retrieved following a joint examination by NDLEA officers, Customs and other stakeholders on Friday, August 28.
A 31-year-old US returnee, Sowunmi David Oludotun, was arrested by NDLEA operatives on August 19 in the Ikate area of Lekki after he arrived to take delivery of 3.350 kilograms of Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis imported from the United Kingdom.