Fake Madmen, Real Crimes: Anambra Police Bust Marijuana Farm Hidden in Plain Sight

By Onwe Wisdom Pan Afric Reporters Awka, Nigeria

What looked like another vagrant wandering the streets of Awka has turned out to be the face of a thriving marijuana network. The Anambra State Police Command has arrested 43-year-old Patrick Ojele, a man who for more than two years disguised himself as a mentally unstable vagrant while cultivating a hidden cannabis farm in the state capital.

The startling discovery was made on September 17, 2025, when police operatives on routine patrol intercepted Ojele along the Awka–Enugu Expressway near Ngozika Estate. What seemed like a harmless eccentric was unmasked as a cunning operator of an illicit farm that supplied dangerous drugs to the underworld.

According to Police spokesperson, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, “The Police Operatives nabbed the suspect during a routine patrol… He later led the team to the hidden farm, where large quantities of weeds suspected to be cannabis sativa were recovered.”

The revelation has stirred public alarm over the growing trend of “fake madmen”  individuals who feign insanity to conceal criminal activities, ranging from drug trafficking to espionage for violent cult groups. For many residents, Ojele’s arrest confirms long-held suspicions that some supposed lunatics roaming the streets are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Commissioner of Police, CP Ikioye Orutugu, said the case demonstrates the Command’s shift in focus from chasing street offenders to dismantling the deeper criminal supply lines. “This arrest reflects the Command’s renewed strategy of cutting off criminal supplies by targeting drug dealers who embolden cultists and violent offenders,” he declared.

The CP has directed that the suspect be transferred to the Special Anti-Cultism Squad (SPACS), Enugwu-Ukwu, for a discreet probe into his buyer network and possible sponsors. The wider fear is that behind Ojele’s ruse lies a distribution chain that feeds cultists and criminal gangs across Anambra and beyond.

Drug cartels and their street-level enablers have long been the oxygen for violent cultism, kidnapping rings, and armed robbery. By unmasking Ojele, the Anambra Police may have cracked open a window into a deeper, darker underworld.

For now, the Command says it will intensify intelligence-led policing to flush out similar networks. But the discovery raises a bigger question for the public: just how many more “madmen” are out there, hiding criminal enterprises in plain sight?