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The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, has uncovered and dismantled a criminal syndicate that specialized in sponsoring hajj pilgrims as drug couriers to Saudi Arabia, arresting three key cartel leaders in Kano.

The kingpins, Abubakar Muhammad, Abdulhakeem Tijjani, and Muhammad Aji Shugaba, were apprehended on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 27 and 28, in follow-up operations after two intending pilgrims were arrested at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport with 90 cocaine pellets.

A statement on Sunday by the agency’s spokesman, Femi Babafemi, said the two suspects, Ibrahim Mustapha and Muhammad Shifado, were intercepted on May 26 during the outward clearance of passengers on the Ethiopian Airlines.

In a related development on Wednesday, Babafemi said the NDLEA officers at the same airport arrested a 60-year-old businessman, Chinedu Leonard Okigbo, in Kano.

Report said he was intercepted during the clearance for Qatar Airways flight to Iran.

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