A Nigerian businessman living in Cebu City was arrested Tuesday evening in a buy-bust operation involving 70 grams of shabu which he tried to sell for P350,000.
James Cunta Okwudili Uyanneh, 53, was taken into custody by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after he handed over two plastic packs of white powder stored in a thick cardboard tray.
The deal was transacted in Moonlight Lodging Inn in Mandaue City’s North Reclamation Area following four months of surveillance.
Two NBI 7 agents who posed as buyers were asked by the Nigerian to count the P1,000 money bills before he handed them the package.
Agents are looking into a possible connection with a drug syndicate and checking the Nigerian’s immigration status.
“It’s alarming that some foreigners are engaged in selling shabu right in our streets. They themselves peddle illegal drugs and (what Uyanneh did) showed how aggressive he was,” said NBI-7 director Antonio Pagatpat in a press conference yesterday.
“We have to determine where these shabu came from,” Pagatpat said.
Uyanneh is married to a Cebuana, with whom he has a 5-year-old daughter and lives in barangay Guadalupe.
He denied being a drug dealer and said the shabu was planted by NBI agents.
“It’s not mine. The package was brought to the room where they put me. The taxi driver who brought me to Moonlight was a witness. This is the first time I’ve been arrested. I have not committed a crime,” he told reporters.
Uyanneh said he set up his own business Eco Pacific Global Links in Cebu City for trading crude oil and had prospective buyers from Malaysia and China although none have signed up a contract yet.
“I have a corporation and I have put my money in this corporation. We look for buyers and sellers (of crude oil) and link them together. But this is not operational because we can’t find a refinery in the Philippines,” he said.
Asked who his business partners were , Uyanneh declined to answer without a lawyer present. He said he arrived in Cebu in Feburary 2007 and decided to settle here since he found the place peaceful.
The NBI said it would file charges today against Uyanneh for selling illegal drugs, a violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
If prosecutors find strong evidence against him, no bail would be granted.
Illegal trade or possession of more than 50 grams of shabu is punishable by life imprisonment and a fine of P500,000 to P10 million upon convction.
The arrest was the third NBI 7 operation within the past two months against persons involved in illegal drugs.
On Sept. 29, 2011, a Kenyan woman, Asha Atieno Ogutu was intercepted with three kilos of shabu in the false bottom of her checked-in luggage upon her arrival at the Mactan International Airport from Doha, Qatar.
The drugs were valued at P18 million.
It was her first time to travel to the Philippines, where she said friends had sponsored her “vacation” and asked her to bring the luggage.
Ogutu was sentenced to life impisonment and ordered to pay a P3 million fine.
In Tuesday’s arrest, the Nigerian said he went to Moonlight Lodging Inn to meet someone who owed him money and that when he stepped out of the taxi, about 25 men ran to the vehicle and ordered him to lie face down on the ground.
“They took me to a room inside the motel and brought a package with a white substance inside it. I said ‘This is not mine.’ What is this humiliation?,” he said.
As of yesterday, he did not have a lawyer to represent him.
The Nigerian complained that NBI agents “took my cellphone. I can’t even communicate with my friends. Nobody knows that I’m here,” he said, including his wife Modesta.
Uyanneh, who is detained at the NBI-7 stockade, said he used to be a member of the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI).
In a media statement, CCCI president Lito Maderazo said Uyanneh was no longer a member of the chamber.
“Now, he’s no longer a member of good standing. Details of his business were already deleted from our database,” Maderazo said.