Police arrest, hands over Abba Kyari to NDLEA

The suspended former head of the Nigerian police’s Intelligence Response Team, DCP Abba Kyari, has been arrested by the police.

Kyari was arrested alongside four others on Monday.

The celebrated cop was arrested hours after National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) declared him wanted over alleged drug links.

NDLEA said Abba Kyari, who was suspended for his relationship with fraudster Abass Olorunwa, better known as Hushpuppi, is a member of an international drug cartel.

“With the intelligence at our disposal, the Agency believes strongly that DCP Kyari is a member of a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline, and he needs to answer questions that crop up in an ongoing drug case in which he is the principal actor,” NDLEA spokesman Femi Babafemi said.

The anti-drug agency said it contacted the suspended top cop for questioning but refused to respond.

The agency, at a press briefing in Abuja by its spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, said on Monday that Mr Kyari was wanted for aiding and abetting drug pushing and running his own international cartel.

According to him, Mr Kyari is a member of a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline.

“The saga started on Friday, January 21, 2022, when DCP Kyari initiated a call to one of the NDLEA officers in Abuja at 2:12 pm. When the officer returned the call two minutes later, Kyari informed him he was coming to see him, to discuss an operational matter after the Juma’at service,” Mr Babafemi recounted.

“He appeared at the agreed venue of the meeting with the officer and went straight to the crux of the matter. This was it: His team had intercepted and arrested some traffickers that came into the country from Ethiopia with, according to him, 25kg of cocaine.

“He proposed a drug deal whereby he and his team are to take 15kg of the cocaine and leave 10kg for the prosecution of the suspects arrested with the illicit drug in Enugu. In the meantime, the purloined cocaine will be replaced with a dummy worth 15kg. He asked the NDLEA officer to persuade men of the FCT Command to play along as well.

“By 11: 05 am on Monday, January 24, after the Agency gave the officer the green light to play along, he and Kyari began a WhatsApp call for the rest of the day. The officer conveyed “their” willingness to play the game.

“At this point, Kyari disclosed that the 15kg (already taken out) was shared between the informants that provided information for the seizure and he and his men of the IRT of the Nigerian Police.”

The declaration by the NDLEA comes a few months after the former police intelligence unit commander was indicted in an internet fraud case by a U.S. court.

The court had declared Mr Kyari wanted to answer allegations of complicity in the $1.1 million bribe fraud perpetrated by a popular fraudster, Ramon Abbas aka Hushpuppi.

This led to his suspension by the Police Service Commission (PSC) from office as a deputy commissioner of police and head of the IRT.