A few days after a Nigerian drug mule was left to die in Madrid airport due to Ebola scare, another Nigerian drug trafficker was arraigned in the UK after being caught with drugs at Edinburgh Airport on August 2. The man swallowed 80 packages of cocaine that is alleged to be worth £387,400 on the street.
According to the hearing that took place at the High Court in Glasgow, Mathew Atueyi flew from Nigeria to Edinburgh airport with a transit in Paris. On arrival, he was approached and questioned by a UK Border officer who was suspicious after discovering Atueyi had £2,000 cash with him.
A urine test showed the 48-year-old Nigerian man was carrying cocaine. When a strip search was carried out on him, nothing was found. Atueyi was subsequently taken to St John’s Hospital, Livingston and x-rayed. It was then discovered he had several packages of cocaine hidden inside him.
[box type=”info” ]Advocate depute David Nicolson, prosecuting, said: “He was subsequently transferred to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where he excreted 80 packages weighing around 1,192 grams in total. “Six of the packages were examined and found to be cocaine with an average purity of 65 per cent. The drug expert witness unit considers this to be importation purity. The street level purity of cocaine in the east of Scotland is only 10 per cent.”[/box]
When Atueyi was questioned by the UK Border Force, he told them he lived in Nigerian city known as Onitsha and traded in cars and clothing. And according to his first claim, the £2,000 he had on him was to enable him purchase clothes for his boutique.
After officers discovered the drugs in him, he confessed he was a mule and the money in his possession was his initial payment for smuggling the drugs into the UK. A further £2,000 was to be paid to him on delivering the goods.
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While he agreed he was aware what he had swallowed was drug, he said he was ignorant of the type of drugs he had swallowed. Atueyi said he was worried about sneaking in cocaine on August 2 at Edinburgh Airport.
Judgment on Atueyi was postponed by Judge Lord Burns until next month. He ordered for the £2,000 found on the Nigerian drug trafficker to be confiscated. He was weeping as he was taken away from court.
Photo Credit: UK Mirror.