A police car in Beirut. AFP archive photo.
The Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced Wednesday the arrest, at an unspecified date, of two Nigerian nationals who smuggled 156 capsules (3.4 kg) of pure cocaine into Lebanon at the end of July by ingesting them beforehand.
The two were arrested in a hotel in the Kesrouan district, north of Beirut, after the Central Bureau for Drug Control obtained information about an international organization recruiting people to deliver cocaine to Lebanon, identifying an operation "from Nigeria to Lebanon, transiting through Ethiopia," the statement said.
The details of the crime
On July 24, 2025, at dawn, two Nigerian nationals, R. A. (born 1996) and L. N. (born 1977), arrived at Beirut's international airport after ingesting cocaine in capsule form, and went directly to a hotel in Kesrouan to extract the capsules and hand them over to a local dealer.
Their arrival was monitored by investigators, who arrested the suspects "in the act." The ISF seized 156 capsules of pure cocaine, with a value estimated at more than half a million U.S. dollars.
On May 22, the ISF had already arrested a man smuggling narcotics through Beirut's airport from an African country, which were found in his suitcases and in capsules he had swallowed.
