Authorities in southeastern Nigeria say a quiet town has been living beside a nightmare. What looked like an ordinary hotel and a modest mortuary now sits at the center of a sprawling organ-harvesting network that police believe operated in plain sight.
According to Fox News, investigators with the Imo State Police Command say the case broke open after a surge of kidnappings near the Jessy Best Hotel and the adjacent Ugwudi mortuary in Ngor Okpala.
Weeks of undercover surveillance followed, and officers say the pieces eventually pointed to one man: High Chief Stanley Oparaugo, known locally as “Morocco.”
Oparaugo, who is alleged to own both the hotel and the mortuary, is now wanted and on the run, according to police.
Authorities say the victims were lured into the hotel, robbed, and abducted. Families were forced to pay ransom—yet some never saw their loved ones again.
Police say the worst details emerged only after they raided the properties. The Jessy Best Hotel had already been abandoned. But next door, inside the mortuary, officers found decomposed and mutilated corpses.
Police spokesperson Henry Okoye said more than 100 bodies were discovered, describing the conditions as unhygienic and deeply suspicious.
“A hotel and a private mortuary owned by the suspect, allegedly used by kidnappers and violent criminals, were inspected,” Okoye said in a statement. “At the mortuary, decomposed and mutilated corpses were discovered in unhygienic conditions, raising suspicions of illegal organ-harvesting activities.”
Okoye added that officers also searched the suspect’s residence, where they recovered “crucial exhibits” now being processed by forensic teams. Investigators believe abducted victims were taken from the hotel to the mortuary, where they were killed and their organs harvested for sale.
Local authorities say security has been ramped up along the Owerri–Aba Expressway, with police assuring travelers they will maintain heightened protection through the holidays.
The case unfolds amid a broader surge of kidnappings and violent crime in Nigeria.
The federal government recently secured the release of 100 schoolchildren taken from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state, late last month.
The ongoing instability has drawn international concern, including from President Donald Trump, who has labeled Nigeria a “country of particular concern” as Christians continue facing persecution across the region.
