The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has nabbed a suspected importer of fake drugs, Mr. Lazarus Onwukwe, in Aba.
Onwuke is alleged to be the largest dealer of expired drugs in the South-East geopolitical zone.
According to report, a joint team of the NAFDAC, the Nigerian Army, the Nigeria Police, and the Department of State Services, DSS, acting on a tip off, stormed Onwukwe’s residence in Umuocheala in Aba and busted what the agency described as the biggest fake and expired drug factory and depot in South-East Nigeria.
During a raid in February, a source told journalists that NAFDAC discovered a mini drug factory within the buildings where expired products are repackaged, revalidated, rebranded and circulated into the markets.
Speaking on the incident, Deputy Director, in charge of Investigation and Enforcement, NAFDAC in South-East and South-South, Pharmacist Omoyeni Babatunji, said the suspect was apprehended while trying to leave the house after sneaking in.
Babatunji further said that after the operation in February, the agency evacuated 14 trucks carrying tons of fake and expired drugs at Onwukwe’s twin two-storey duplex with boys’ quarters and other bungalows.
The building was sealed while the suspect has been at large since February.
In an interview with journalists, the suspect confirmed that he owns the buildings, makes use of them as warehouses for the drugs he deals on, which he maintained were foreign drugs and not expired drugs.
He also denied having knowledge that his buildings were sealed after the 11th February raid by NAFDAC, hence the decision by his wife to rent the spaces to tenants.
Speaking on why he did not submit himself to the authorities, Onwukwe said he has been sick for over three months.
The suspect, however, said that he never knew that one of his boys, whom he settled after his apprenticeship and who was still staying with him prior to the raid, was using his house to revalidate expired drugs.
