By Juliet Oladele, Reporting
LAGOS, Nigeria – A 63-year-old Chinese grandmother has been arrested by Nigeria’s anti-drug agency after she allegedly tried to smuggle a massive consignment of synthetic cannabis into the country.
Ting Hung Kiong, who naturalised in Malaysia and works as a caregiver, was intercepted on Sunday 17 May 2026 at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) in Ikeja, Lagos.
Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) stopped her as she arrived from Thailand via Dubai on an Emirates Airline flight.
The Chinese Grandma
Her consignment
Two large travel boxes in her possession were found to contain 31 kilogrammes of ‘Canadian Loud’ – a potent synthetic strain of cannabis.
Investigators say the pensioner travelled from Malaysia to Thailand, spent two weeks there, and was then handed the illicit cargo at the Thai airport to deliver in Nigeria.
During an interview, Ting claimed her daughter had sponsored the trip from Malaysia to Thailand and onward to Nigeria.
The bust was one of several major drug hauls announced by the NDLEA this week.
In a separate operation at the Lagos airport cargo shed, customs handed over 29 large cartons containing 1,825,710 tablets of Tapentadol (250mg) to the agency on Friday 22 May.
The shipment, which arrived from India on an Emirates Cargo flight, has an estimated street value of N2,190,852,000.
Other interceptions include a Nigerian passenger, Onyeka Valentine Emeka, who excreted 185.36 grammes of cocaine at Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, on Wednesday 20 May, and a building engineer, Babatunde Prosper Afekhide, arrested at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on 21 May with 10,280 opioid pills hidden in a suitcase.
NDLEA also raided a warehouse in Ekiti state on Saturday 23 May, seizing 1,116kg of skunk and arresting a 54-year-old suspect, Ogundana Adebayo Julius. Similar operations in Edo, Kano and Badagry yielded hundreds of kilogrammes of cannabis and thousands of pills.
NDLEA Chairman Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (Rtd) praised the operatives and urged them to maintain their momentum, balancing supply reduction with ongoing War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) awareness campaigns in schools and communities across the country.
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