Esther Uzodinma, a 200-level nursing student at Noida International University, Uttar Pradesh, India, was arrested on January 16 after her attempt to ingest 76 wraps of cocaine failed.
Uzodinma, 26, from Imo State, was allegedly working for a drug cartel in India that sent her to Nigeria for the festive holiday.
The consignment she was arrested with—76 wraps of cocaine—was to be ingested on January 16 in a hotel called Royal Park in the Sabon Garin area of Kano State.
The wraps were to be conveyed to her on January 16 by one Cosmas Okorie from Lagos, and she was to return to Delhi, India, from the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano, on Qatar Airways flight 1432 on January 17.
However, things took a different turn when the vehicle conveying Okorie from Lagos to Kano was intercepted along the Okene-Lokoja highway in Kogi State by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
“Inside his black polythene bag was an audio speaker, which was used to conceal 76 pellets of cocaine weighing 1.340 kilograms, which he was going to deliver to Esther in Kano.
“A swift follow-up operation in Kano led to the arrest of the female nursing university student later the same day,” a statement by the NDLEA read on Sunday.
Upon Uzodinma’s arrest, she claimed in her statement that she was “promised over $5,000 upon successful delivery of the illicit consignment in India.”
The statement read partly, “In her statement, Esther claimed the drug cartel she was working for recruited her in India and paid for her trip to Nigeria to enjoy her Christmas and New Year holidays.
“To avoid her parents knowing she was in Nigeria, Esther did not travel to her home state, Imo but was lodged for two weeks in a hotel in Enugu, from where she was flown to Abuja and then Kano, where she was lodged at the Royal Park Hotel to swallow the 76 pellets of cocaine sent to her from Lagos before taking her Qatar Airways flight to India on Friday morning.”