The NDLEA said investigations revealed that Chinedu had travelled from Turkey and transited through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he collected the consignment from another person before proceeding to Nigeria.
A former international footballer, Hunkarin Segun George, has been convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment for conspiring to unlawfully import cocaine into Nigeria, while a fugitive drug kingpin, Ntoruka Emmanuel Chinedu, received a 22-year jail term after being found guilty of multiple cocaine importation offences.
Justice Musa Kakaki of the Federal High Court in Lagos delivered the judgment on Friday, July 24, 2026, sentencing the two convicts to a combined total of 24 years imprisonment over the unlawful importation of 7.050 kilograms of cocaine.
According to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Chinedu was first arraigned in September 2015 on a one-count charge marked FHC/L/227C/2015 for unlawfully importing 6.250 kilograms of cocaine. He pleaded not guilty and was granted bail but absconded midway through the trial, remaining at large for nearly 10 years.
The agency said Chinedu was eventually re-arrested by NDLEA operatives on June 24, 2025, at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, while attempting to smuggle 800 grams of cocaine into the country aboard an inbound Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa.
