Nigerian nabbed for drug after faking to be Liverpool fan

A Nigerian Benjamin Nwaogwugwu has been nabbed after swallowing a kilo of cocaine worth £80,000 while  pretending to be a Liverpool fan returning from the UEFA Champions League final. The 43 year old was reportedly grimacing in pain when police saw him.

Benjamin Nwaogwugwu,  who was recruited by Colombian drug lords, swallowed the huge 79-package haul at a hotel in South America before flying 5,000 miles to Paris and then home to the UK under the guise of being a football fan.

But he was detained on his arrival at Manchester Airport when officers saw him grimacing in pain due to the effects of the drugs and he was taken to hospital where it took two days to pass all the packages from his bowels for analysis.

Experts tested 19 of the packages to find all contained cocaine with a purity of up to 89% with the haul being worth up to £80,000.

Nwaogwugwu, of Longsight, Manchester, who has a wife and teenage children in the UK later claimed he had been pressured into becoming a drugs mule by gangsters who promised to look after other members of his family in his native Nigeria.

He said he had been told to swallow 100 packages of cocaine but was physically unable to ingest them all.

It is not thought the former hotel worker suffered any long lasting medical ill effects from swallowing the drugs.

During questioning, officers checked Nwaogwugwu’s mobile phone and found incriminating pictures of a mysterious strip of land lined with palm trees plus a hotel based in South America.

At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Nwaogwugwu was jailed for four years and two months after he pleaded guilty to importation of cocaine.

The arrest took place when Border Agency Officers intercepted Nwaogwugwu on June 1 2022.