Abuja, Nigeria: The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency arrested 38-year-old South African national Will Ann on Monday, July 6, 2026, for allegedly attempting to smuggle 5.75 kilograms of heroin into Nigeria through the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.
The agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, confirmed the arrest in a statement issued at 11:28 a.m. WAT on Sunday, July 12, 2026. Okay News reports that Babafemi announced the recovery of 14 blocks of heroin concealed within two suitcases.
The suspect arrived on Qatar Airways Flight QR1433 from Doha, Qatar, after beginning her journey in Cambodia, traveling with her three-year-old son.
“Though she initially denied travelling with check-in bags, after operatives were able to quickly establish that the two bags containing the drugs had tags which tallied with the claim tags attached to her passport, she recanted and admitted ownership of the bags, adding that she forgot she checked in the two bags,” Babafemi said.
Intelligence operations linked the suspect to a transnational drug trafficking syndicate operating between Cambodia and South Africa, alongside her partner, Jan Coenraad De Jager.
In a separate operation, anti-narcotics officers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos arrested 48-year-old Onyechere Chinadu upon his arrival from Madagascar via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on an Ethiopian Airlines flight. Officers found 87 wraps of methamphetamine in his backpack.
“He said he ingested the recovered pellets of methamphetamine in Uganda before embarking on his planned journey to Madagascar to deliver the drug consignment,” the agency statement said.
The suspect excreted 13 additional pellets between his arrest and July 11, bringing the total recovery to 100 wraps weighing 1.715 kilograms.
At the Apapa Seaport in Lagos, a joint examination by the agency and the Nigeria Customs Service uncovered 8,287 bags of Canadian Loud, a synthetic cannabis strain, weighing 4,143.5 kilograms. The shipment arrived from Montreal, Canada, and has an estimated street value exceeding 10.3 billion Naira (6.8 million USD).
“The discovery followed weeks of targeted tracking and monitoring of the shipment since its departure from Montreal, Canada, by operatives of the Maritime Intelligence Unit of NDLEA in close collaboration with the Apapa Strategic Command of the Agency,” the statement said.
Officers also foiled an attempt to export 2.5 kilograms of skunk concealed in a gas compressor destined for Cyprus through a Lagos courier company.
