Drug agency puts Nigerian senator-elect wanted in US for drug dealing under house arrest

LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigerian drug agents have arrested a senator-elect wanted by the United States in a nearly 20-year-old heroin deal that was the basis for the TV hit “Orange is the New Black.”

Spokesman Mitchell Ofoyeju of the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency says agents put Buruji Kashamu under house arrest at his Lagos home Saturday. He says Kashamu, 56, will appear in court Monday to start extradition proceedings to the United States.

Kashamu had become a powerful politician, financier of the party of President Goodluck Jonathan. Both lost March elections.

Kashamu has said the 1998 indictment by a grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois for conspiracy to import and distribute heroin in the U.S. is a case of mistaken identity and Chicago prosecutors really want his dead brother.

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