Nigeria’s anti-narcotics agency has issued a fresh warning to international trafficking syndicates after a Lagos court handed down nearly $6 million in fines and restitution against 11 Indian sailors and their cargo ship over a cocaine seizure at one of the country’s busiest ports.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), chairman and chief executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, said the verdict sends a message to anyone considering using Nigerian waters as a smuggling route. “Whether you come by air, land, or sea, whether you are a Nigerian or a foreign national, if you attempt to use our waters as a narcotics highway, you will face the full weight of Nigerian law,” he said.
The case centred on the MV Aruna Hulya, which NDLEA operatives intercepted at the GDNL Terminal in Apapa Port on January 2, 2026, after the vessel arrived from the Marshall Islands. A search of the ship turned up 31.5 kilograms of cocaine hidden in Hatch 3, prompting the arrest of the vessel’s master and crew.
Justice Joseph Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court in Lagos delivered judgment on the matter on June 11, almost six months after the seizure, after the prosecution and defence reached a ple-bargain agreement. All 12 defendants, the 11 crew members and the vessel itself, treated as a separate defendant, were convicted under Section 25 of the NDLEA Act and each ordered to pay a statutory fine of ₦100,000.
Beyond that base penalty, the court imposed steep additional restitution. The MV Aruna Hulya was ordered to pay $5.3 million, or its naira equivalent, to the federal government, with the vessel’s owners liable for the sum; if they default, authorities have indicated the ship could be auctioned to recover the debt. Three of its senior officers, Sharma Shashi Bhushan, Nilesh Mukuno Bhalerad and Melethil Insaf Rahman, were ordered to pay $100,000 each, while the remaining eight crew members face restitution of $50,000 apiece, pushing the combined penalty close to $6 million.
Marwa credited the agency’s Apapa Strategic Command for detecting the consignment buried within the vessel’s cargo and praised its Directorate of Prosecution and Legal Services for steering the case to conviction. “Our courts have spoken, and we will continue to give them reason to speak. The war against drug trafficking is one we are winning, and we intend to keep it that way,” he added.
The conviction adds to a string of recent prosecutions targeting foreign crews caught smuggling cocaine through Nigerian ports. Just over a year earlier, the Federal High Court in Lagos convicted ten Filipino sailors and their vessel, the MV Chayanee Naree, for importing nearly 33 kilograms of cocaine in 2021, with the ship fined $4 million under a similar plea deal. Analysts say such cases underscore the extent to which Lagos’ commercial harbours among the busiest in West Africa and critical to Nigeria’s import and export trade, remain attractive transit points for international drug networks moving narcotics between South America, Europe and beyond.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah