At least, two Nigerians were arrested in July in Beirut, Lebanon, for allegedly smuggling 156 cocaine capsules, weighing about three kilograms, valued at more than $500,000.
It was learnt on Thursday that the suspects allegedly ingested the narcotics before being apprehended inside a hotel in the Kesrouan district, north of Beirut.
According to the Lebanese news outlet, L’Orient Today, the arrests were carried out by the country’s Central Bureau for Drug Control.
The agency disclosed on Wednesday that it had been investigating “an international organisation recruiting people to deliver cocaine to Lebanon,” noting that the operation ran “from Nigeria to Lebanon, transiting through Ethiopia.”
The Internal Security Forces said the two Nigerians, identified only as R. A. (born 1996) and L. N. (born 1977), arrived at Beirut’s international airport at dawn on July 24, 2025.
“They had swallowed cocaine capsules and went directly to a hotel in Kesrouan to extract the capsules and hand them over to a local dealer,” the ISF statement read.
Investigators, who had been tracking their movements, were said to have arrested the pair “in the act.” The ISF confirmed that “156 capsules of pure cocaine” were seized, estimating their value at “more than half a million U.S. dollars.”
The agency added that the bust followed an earlier arrest on May 22, when a man attempting to smuggle narcotics into Beirut from an African country was caught at the airport with drugs hidden in his suitcases and swallowed in capsule
CKNNews reports that arrests of Nigerians abroad for crimes ranging from scams and rape to drug trafficking have been on the rise.
Last month, the Ghana Immigration Service confirmed the arrest of about 50 Nigerians for alleged cyberfraud and human trafficking during a coordinated operation at McCarthy Hills in the Ga South Municipality of Accra.
The landlord of the property where the suspects were found was also apprehended.