At least 286 luxury cars and 600 bank accounts of drug barons have been seized and frozen in Nigeria in the last 20 months.
This was disclosed by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in a document released by its spokesperson Femi Babafemi.
The anti-narcotic agency said the incidents happened between January 2021 and August 2022.
The Punch reports on Wednesday that the assets consisted of 249 exotic cars and 37 mansions.
The agency’s seizures came against the backdrop of the categorisation of Nigeria by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as the transit point for “heroin and cocaine intended for European, East Asian, and North American markets.”
The anti-drugs agency said it was faced with the “overwhelming task of drug control in a country with an exceptionally high prevalence of drug use of 14.4 percent.”
Mr Babademi said the assets of drug barons consisted of “249 exotic vehicles seized and 37 properties forfeited, all scattered across the country.”
It also seized N871.53m worth of illegal drug funds between January 2021 and August 2022.
NDLEA said N619.12m was recorded as final illegal drug funds forfeiture and N252.41m as interim forfeiture.
It said under its drug supply reduction effort, 18,940 suspected drug traffickers were arrested from January 2021 to July 2022.