Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Monday, November 24, 2014
It has emerged that the Ghanaian woman arrested with
12.5 kilos of cocaine in London Heathrow Airport on November 10 used the VVIP lounge
of the Kotoka International Airport in Accra for her abortive trip.
Meanwhile, three of her suspected collaborators have
been nabbed.
The VVIP section is reserved high profile
individuals including ministers of state as well as other top diplomats.
DAILY
GUIDE learnt that the replay of the Close Circuit
Television, CCTV recordings indicated that Nayele Ametefeh aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi used
the VVIP wing for her trip to London and that some three people who allegedly
aided her were also unearthed.
Latest
Arrests
Communications Minister, Dr. Edward Omane-Boamah said
on Radio Gold’s news analysis
programme Alhaji & Alhaji last Saturday that three people have been
arrested in connection with the arrest of Nayele Ametefeh but refused to
mention their names.
However, DAILY GUIDE sources revealed that
the three arrested included an officer with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who
is attached to the airport.
The three were all tracked down after security
officials reviewed the Close Circuit Television images at the airport.
DAILY
GUIDE also learnt that an Alhaji whose name came up
strongly during the initial interrogation of the three arrested people is being
hotly pursued. “Another person whose name was
mentioned by all the three individuals who are arrested is yet to be arrested.
That person is been pursued vigorously by the security agencies”, Dr
Omane-Boamah said.
More
names pop up
News emerging also has it that Nayele Ametefeh also
uses many names on different travelling documents.
Apart from Nayele Ametefeh, she is reported to be
using Angel, Ruby Adu-Gyamfi and now Irene Tawiah among others.
Diplomatic
Passport
On the fateful day at Heathrow, she was said to be
carrying passports issued by the governments of both Austria and Ghana with the
name Nayele Ametefeh in them.
The government however, continues to dispute the Diplomatic
Passport bit even though an Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung published that Ruby brandished a diplomatic passport
when suspicious security details at the Heathrow Airport stopped her.
She was said to be carrying three passports.
Wanted
List
The busted drug courier, Nayele Ametefeh, according to report
has been on the wanted list of Ghana’s Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), since
2009.
A former NACOB Commander at Ghana’s Kotoka International
Airport, Anthony Smith - who said he is very familiar with the lady involved told Joy FM’s Newsfile programme Saturday that Ruby
has several aliases which may have aided her to slip through the security net
all this while until her arrest on November 10 by UK security authorities at
Heathrow.
According to the former NACOB Commander, who now domiciles outside
Ghana, Ruby, also used ‘Ruby Appiah’, to traffic drugs years ago.
He said the Ghanaian lady, normally uses unsuspecting people
at the Airport, such as cleaners, to help her smuggle the drugs onboard the
plane without raising any suspicion from security officials at the Airport.
Smith said Ruby used that strategy to outwit security at the
Airport in 2009 when she attempted smuggling about 5kgs of cocaine with the
help of a cleaner called Daniel Kabutey, who hid the narcotic substance in a
trashcan, but was caught and jailed.
Cleaner was driving state of the art BMW car before his
arrest with Ruby eluding arrest at the time.
NACOB
Governing Board
The arrest of the Ruby appears to be shaking the
foundation of the narcotics law enforcement body NACOB, as President John
Mahama at the weekend dissolved the Governing Board of the Narcotics Control
Board (NACOB) with immediate effect.
The terse statement signed by Chief of Staff,
Prosper Bani did not give reasons for the dissolution of the board but said
“further action will follow in due course.”
At all material times, the Government Board was
chaired Naval Captain Baffuor Assasie-Gyimah (Rtd) with personalities like Rev.
Dr. Fred Deegbe, the immediate past General Secretary of Christian Council of
Ghana and others as members.
When news broke in the local media about the arrest
of Ruby, NACOB quickly issued a press release claiming it ‘collaborated’ with
their British counterparts in the operation, a statement that later turned out
to be false, as the British authorities through the High Commission in Ghana
flatly denied any collaboration.
Even though NACOB had given ‘details’ about Ruby’s
travelling documents the statement failed to
explain where the suspect whose cocaine haul valued at over $5million
boarded the plane.
They were also silent on which section of the
airport Ruby used to board the BA78 flight on November 9.
NACOB
Shot down
The claim of collaboration was shot down immediately
by the British High Commission in Accra and even the Minister of Communications.
The High Commission issued a release dismissing the
statement by NACOB by saying that the UK security there was no such
collaboration as claimed.
According to the High
Commission, even though the UK authorities have been working closely with NACOB
since 2006, they “had no prior knowledge of the intentions of Ms. Nayele
Ametefe before flying from Accra to London on 9/10 November.”
“UK
authorities work closely with NACOB to ensure that, wherever possible, any
potential drug trafficker to the UK from Ghana is arrested here in Ghana and
not permitted to board a flight in order to traffic drugs”, the statement had emphasized.
The Communications Minister for his part also said
“I discounted NACOB’s claims that they collaborated with the British intelligence
with respect to this particular arrest. However to give them the benefit of the
doubt I also indicated that if they release evidence to contradict that
discount that I had put out there, I was ready to change my position.”
Akrasi Must Go!
In the
midst of the confusion over the $5million cocaine haul, pressure is also
mounting on the Executive Secretary of NACOB, Yaw Akrasi Sarpong to resign
following what many believed was the failure of the state institution to stem
the narcotic trade in the country.
For
instance, financial analyst and anti corruption
campaigner, Sydney
Casely-Hayford said on Citi FM that
the seeming
silence of Mr. Akrasi Sarpong, over the cocaine saga was “suspicious”.
“Akrasi Sarpong is a very very outspoken,
hard-talking, open person. I don’t know of any incident that has actually even
infringed on the corners of NACOB that Akrasi Sarpong has not said a word
about. So there is something amiss in all of these,” he contended.
DAILY
GUIDE learnt that at the time Ruby was arrested in London,
Mr. Akrasi Sarpong who publicly advocated the legalization of marijuana, a
narcotics drug, was said to be out of the country.
The controversial NACOB press statement was signed
by his deputy, Richard Nii Lante Blankson.
No comments:
Post a Comment