Three pounds of cocaine has been seized from a man travelling from Nigeria after control scanners alerted customs officers to a hidden compartment in his luggage.

Anthony Orabueze, 44, was caught in the act during filtering of outbound baggage by customs officer’s in a subdivision of Douala airport, at around 3.45am on Tuesday. He was on his way to Casablanca, with a final destination of Lyon, France.

A customs officer at the airport of Douala said: "Officers found that his luggage had a double bottom. According to the procedure, we put aside the baggage and we called for the passenger to open it so we could do a manual search.

“The bag was emptied and put back in the scanner, but the double bottom persisted. The luggage was then sent to our office where we found and unscrewed two double bottoms on the sides. Two wafers of a weight of about three pounds were removed from the bottom and tests have confirmed that it was cocaine."

According to Orabueze, the goods were purchased in Lagos, where he arrived on June 28 for a Camair-Co flight.