At Lagos airport, officials from Nigeria confiscate cocaine valued at over $3 million

A traveler arriving at Lagos airport on a flight from Ethiopia had 19.4 kg (42.77 pounds) of cocaine worth 4.66 billion naira ($2.93 million) intercepted by Nigerian officials, the country’s anti-drug agency said on Tuesday.

On September 18, the 48-year-old Nigerian businessman who had been found guilty of trafficking the previous year but had paid a fine to avoid going to jail was taken into custody, according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). It was said that he had 817 wraps of cocaine on him.

Nigeria, home to more than 200 million people, is the most populous country in Africa. In the past several years, it has evolved from a gang’s transit hub for drugs being transported between South America and Europe to a major distributor and consumer of drugs.

Mohammed Buba Marwa, the head of the NDLEA, stated in a statement that “the agency will continue to work to disrupt the activities of drug cartels operating in the country.”

$1 equals 1,593.0700 naira.