A Nigerian drug peddler who swallowed a kilogramme of cocaine worth £80,000 has been caught pretending to be a Liverpool fan returning from the UEFA Champions League final when police saw him grimacing in pain.
According to The Mail of London, 43-year-old Benjamin Nwaogwugwu was allegedly recruited by Colombian drug lords and he swallowed the huge 79-package haul at a hotel in South America before flying 5,000 miles to Paris and then home to the UK under the guise of being a football fan.
He was, however, detained on his arrival at Manchester Airport when officers saw him grimacing in pain because of the effects of the drugs, following which he was taken to hospital where it took two days to pass all the packages from his bowels for analysis.
Experts were said to have tested 19 of the packages and they all contained cocaine with the total haul worth up to £80,000.
Nwaogwugwu, a resident of Longsight, Manchester, who has a wife and teenage children in the UK, was said to have later claimed that he was pressured into becoming a drugs peddler by some gangsters who promised to look after other members of his family in Nigeria.
He said he had been told to swallow 100 packages of cocaine but was physically unable to ingest them all.
The Colombians were said to have exploited an EU freedom of movement loophole to smuggle the haul into Europe via French Guiana which is used by cartel bosses as a gateway to Europe due to it being an ‘overseas department’ of France.
During questioning, officers were said to have checked Nwaogwugwu’s mobile phone and found incriminating pictures of a mysterious strip of land lined with palm trees plus a hotel based in South America.
At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Nwaogwugwu was jailed for four years and two months after he pleaded guilty to importation of cocaine.
The Nation
