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Palma narcotics agents yesterday smashed a Nigerian drugs cartel in the capital and arrested nine people. The arrests and siezure of drugs and cash, bring to an end a six-month under cover operation which centred around the activities at a hairdressing salon near the Lluis Sitjar football stadium. The UDYCO drugs and organised crime squad launched its investigation last April after receiving information about a well organised drugs cartel, peddling cocaine and hashish, being operated by a group of Nigerians in the capital. The drugs squad focused its operation on the cartel's “sales outlets,” with the centre of the gang's activities being a hairdresser's near the football stadium. Gradually police gathered more and more evidence implicating the 52-year-old owner of the salon as the main dealer and was placed under round the clock surveillance. Over the following months as the drugs squad continued their lengthy stake-out, narcotics agents were able to identify the three main Nigerian dealers, two men and a woman. The drugs squad decided to make its final move on Monday evening at 9pm with four simultaneous raids on a property near the Olivar Market, where the gang was storing the drugs, a house in calle Tomás Rullán, the hairdresser's and the salon owner's house. The drugs squad made its move as the hairdresser met up with one of the Nigerians to purchase a quantity of drugs. The hairdresser was caught and allegedly in her possession was ten grams of cocaine and 85'000 pesetas in cash and the Nigerian allegedly had a further ten grams of cocaine concealed about his body. On the raid at a home of the Nigerian gang, over a kilo of cocaine was found, 3.5 kilos of hashish and nine million pesetas in cash and a large sum of foreign currency.