NDLEA arrests US basketball player with 33.95kg cannabis in Lagos

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency. Photo: NDLEA

Nigeria’s anti-narcotics agency on Sunday said it had arrested an American professional basketball player with 33.95Kg of cannabis in his luggage on arrival at the main airport.

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency named the player as 28-year-old Greene Da’monte Khiree, from the US state of Georgia.

He was arrested on Wednesday at the main international airport carpark in Lagos after he “was observed abandoning his two checked-in bags before attempting to exit the airport with only his carry-on luggage”, NDLEA said in a statement.

The bags bearing his name tags were filled with 16 packs of a “potent strain of cannabis”, the agency said.

He had arrived in Lagos from Thailand, where he said he had lived and played professional basketball since October 2025, the agency said.

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The agency said he claimed he was visiting Nigeria to “build networks for his basketball career” but examination of his mobile phone showed information suggesting his “knowledge of and involvement in the drug trafficking activity”.

FIBA lists a player by the name DaMonte Greene, a point guard, one of whose recent appearances was at the Phuket Elite Cup in September.

Nigeria has been considered a trafficking and production hub for drugs bound for other countries, but researchers say the contraband spills into local markets.

Recent busts of industrial-scale meth production labs have left authorities worrying that Mexican cartels are establishing links in Nigeria to produce and ship meth out of the country.

AFP

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