A Nigerian national, Tonny Iheoma Ezeh, has been sentenced to nine years and three months in prison for using elderly victims as unwitting drug mules, following a probe by the UK’s National Crime Agency.
Described as “callous” by authorities, the 51-year-old Ezeh, who holds Nigerian, Canadian, and Jamaican passports, lured his victims, an 80-year-old and a 67-year-old German man, by convincing them they were due to receive large financial windfalls.
According to a Thursday NCA report obtained by PUNCH Metro, the convicted Nigerian drug trafficker instructed the elderly men to travel abroad to claim the supposed funds.
The men were unknowingly recruited to smuggle methamphetamine hidden inside sweets into the UK, with plans for them to continue onwards to Hong Kong.
The two elderly men were subsequently arrested at Heathrow Airport, one on October 18, 2023, and the other three days later. Investigators discovered each man was carrying around three kilograms of meth.
Though both men were initially charged with smuggling Class A drugs, the charges were later dropped after evidence proved they had been duped by Ezeh and were unaware of the criminal operation.
Ezeh, who operated from Mexico, was arrested upon arrival in the UK on December 23, 2023.
The NCA stated that the drug trafficker’s mobile phone data was said to have exposed his links to a West African crime syndicate involved in trafficking Class A drugs internationally through airline passengers and parcel shipments.
According to the NCA, the syndicate targeted elderly and vulnerable individuals using email-based financial scams.
The victims were said to have been told that they were inheriting millions of euros or dollars and were made to travel to Mexico to sign fake documents.
They were then handed boxes of “Elvan Chocolate Truffles” allegedly meant for hosts in Hong Kong, truffles which concealed the drugs.
The NCA Operations Manager, Peter Jones, disclosed, “Tonny Ezeh is an extremely callous criminal. He and his crime group singled out and took advantage of elderly, vulnerable victims.”
“He didn’t care at all about the trauma the men would experience when stopped, arrested and remanded in a foreign land,” he added.
Jones also issued a warning to the public: “If an offer is too good to be true, it very likely is, and we urge anyone who is approached and asked to transport goods to think very carefully.”
He further stressed, “The NCA and partners at home and abroad continue to fight the threat of Class A drugs entering the UK.”
This marks the second conviction of a Nigerian national for a drug-related offence in the UK within a year.
In July 2024, 41-year-old Damilola Ogundeyin was convicted for his role in a large-scale cocaine trafficking operation carried out in 2022.
Ogundeyin, who already had a prior criminal record, was found guilty of the offence by the Crown Court in Croydon and was subsequently sentenced in December 2024.
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