Every day is not a ‘Sunday’ for accused drug dealer Onye Lucky

PANJIM: In police custody for alleged drug trafficking, Sunday Onye Lucky is a known name in the northern coastal belt where drug trade and overstaying foreigners record an increasing number.

On March 22, 2022, the Nigerian national added one more case to a list of offences against him. He was caught by the Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) sleuths with party drugs costing approximately a whopping Rs 66.95 lakh.

Herald’s inquiry has revealed that Onye is not only the unofficial co-owner of a bar-and-restaurant in Saligao, run by his Goan wife; the 50-year-old has been arrested four times in separate cases.

It was the infamous clash between the police and a mob of Nigerians apparently led by Onye in 2013 that brought him into the limelight. While the case is still pending trial, he was thereafter booked in another case of rioting in the jurisdiction of Mapusa Police Station. In another case in 2017, he was arrested for producing forged documents.

Living in Goa for more than a decade, the Nigerian was first booked for a bailable offence in 2011. The FIR was registered under Section 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapons) of Indian Penal Code by Calangute Police.

While he is involved in a series of cases for offences in the densely populated North Goa, Onye is – by default – the owner of a bar and restaurant actually run by his Goan wife. Herald has documents wherein his wife dragged Goa Police and the Excise Department to the High Court for refusing a No Objection to her business.

The woman has obtained a power of attorney of the commercial property, whose original owner is one Govekar from Saligao. In 2016, when the Calangute police refused a NOC to her, the Excise Department kept her application for renewal of liquor licence pending. 

The woman accused the police and henchmen that they were “against a local female entrepreneur married to a foreign national, whose work is to protect the citizens and not to harass them or to frame false cases and the extent to which it can be subverted by the rich and influential.” She claimed that some corrupt officers were harassing her but the court declined to go into the allegations while passing the order in her favour in 2020.

With Onye’s arrest for the drug offence, his alleged criminal past comes haunting him even as the ANC has decided to probe his Goan in-laws. The premises, where the alleged drug activity was caught by the raiding team, has also been sealed.