After 17 years of trafficking illicit drugs worth billions, 59-year-old Ogbonnaya Jeff has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) at his hideout in Ojo, Lagos.
NDLEA Chairman, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd), announced the arrest on March 3, 2025, in Abuja.
He revealed that Ogbonnaya had been on INTERPOL’s wanted list between 2023 and 2024 and was tracked with intelligence from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
Marwa described Ogbonnaya as the leader of an international drug syndicate, recruiting young Nigerians as couriers to smuggle drugs into South Korea.
He was arrested on February 12, 2025, at his residence on LASU Road, Lagos. A search uncovered multiple Nigerian passports with Korean visas and illicit substances in his warehouse.
Ogbonnaya, who previously served a one-year sentence in South Korea in 2007 before being deported in 2008, continued his illegal activities.
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He operated across multiple countries, including Cameroon, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Liberia.
Investigations linked him to a shipment of over 6kg of drugs to South Korea, hidden in dried chilies and jujube, and drug consignments worth N1.4 billion smuggled between December 2023 and April 2024.
His network included a courier known as “Asa” and supply manager Okori Emmanuel, based in South Korea.
The Seoul Central District Court issued two arrest warrants for Ogbonnaya in 2024, charging him under South Korea’s Narcotics Control Act, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Marwa reiterated NDLEA’s commitment to dismantling drug syndicates, emphasizing that Nigeria will not be a safe zone for traffickers. “The arrest of Ogbonnaya is therefore an affirmation of our resolve to work with our international partners to ensure no drug baron finds Nigeria a comfort zone to distribute illicit substances within the country or traffic them to other countries.
