Suspected fake police officer and accomplice held with 292.48 kg of skunk in Asaba
Nigeria's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) arrested 49-year-old Innocent Ekpe, who allegedly posed as a police deputy superintendent, and 39-year-old Nduka Joseph on the Benin-Onitsha expressway in Asaba on 16 September 2026. Officers found 292.48 kg of skunk in Ekpe's silver Toyota Sienna; the agency said he used a forged police identity card to pass checkpoints.
🇳🇬 Benin-Onitsha expressway, Asaba, Delta State · Nigeria
- Arrested
- 2
- Cannabis
- 292.5 kg
Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) arrested 49-year-old
Innocent Ekpe, a suspected fake police officer, on the Benin-Onitsha expressway
in Asaba, Delta State, on Wednesday 16 September 2026.[1] Officers found
292.48 kg of skunk concealed in his silver Toyota Sienna bus.[2] His alleged
accomplice, 39-year-old Nduka Joseph, was arrested with him.[3]
The NDLEA said Ekpe had long posed as Godwin Emeka, a Deputy Superintendent of
Police, using a forged identity card to pass checkpoints while transporting
illicit drugs.[2] The agency announced the arrests in a statement by its
spokesman, Femi Babafemi.[2]
The Asaba arrest was one of a string of operations the agency reported across
Lagos, Edo, Niger, Delta, Ondo, Gombe, Imo and the Federal Capital Territory
(FCT).[1] In the same statement, the agency reported seizing about 6,000 kg of
cannabis and more than 1.3 million pills and capsules of tramadol and other
opioids, with a combined street value above N3.4 billion.[3]
Sources
- NDLEA intercepts N3.4bn Loud, opioids, arrests fake police officer, mechanic-drug dealer. National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, 20 September 2026.
- NDLEA nabs fake police officer transporting drugs across states. Daily Trust, 21 September 2026.
- NDLEA intercepts N3.4bn drugs, arrests fake police officer. The Guardian Nigeria, 20 September 2026.
Open questions the AI reported
- No charge or court date for Ekpe and Joseph was reported.
- No value was published for the 292.48 kg of skunk seized in Asaba.
- The NDLEA statement also reports separate cannabis operations in Edo, Ondo and Imo states and at Tin-Can Island Port, Lagos, which are not part of this report.
- The exact point on the Benin-Onitsha expressway where Ekpe was stopped was not given.
- NDLEA intercepts N3.4bn drugs, arrests fake police officer (The Guardian Nigeria) could not be opened again to check its quotations (access challenge: Cloudflare blocked access to the article; archived fallback unavailable (Wayback availability answered HTTP 429). No AI research was started); what it says is as the AI read it.