The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.), has said Nigeria’s fight against drug trafficking will not be fully successful unless criminal networks are stripped of the financial resources that sustain their activities.

Marwa stated this while speaking at the 43rd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime in the United Kingdom, where he emphasised the need to target the financial foundations of organised drug trafficking.

According to him, the effectiveness of anti-drug operations should not be judged solely by the number of arrests, prosecutions or convictions secured, but also by the ability of law enforcement agencies to make criminal activities financially unprofitable.

He highlighted the NDLEA’s asset recovery measures, citing the sale of a forfeited hotel for $4.2 million and the freezing of bank accounts containing more than $7 million as examples of efforts to disrupt the financial operations of suspected criminals.

Marwa said the agency was expanding its use of financial investigations and asset forfeiture while strengthening cooperation with international partners to trace and recover proceeds linked to drug trafficking.

He said depriving criminal organisations of their illicit wealth would weaken their ability to recruit operatives, acquire drugs and weapons and maintain the networks required to sustain their operations.

The NDLEA chief added that the measures were consistent with the objectives of Nigeria’s National Drug Control Master Plan 2026–2030, which places greater emphasis on disrupting the economic structures supporting the illicit drug trade.

He stressed that targeting criminal proceeds alongside conventional enforcement operations would provide a more effective strategy for dismantling drug trafficking networks.