Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Ghana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom
Emmanuel Victor Smith has dispatched consular officers to see Nayele Ametefeh,
the lady arrested with 12 kilos of cocaine in London Heathrow Airport.
According to the High Commissioner his office’s
attention was drawn to the cocaine arrest on Sunday a week after the arrest of Ms.
Ametefe aka Ruby Adu -Gyamfi aka Angel who travelled on an Austrian Passport.
Victor Smith said he was visiting the cocaine
suspect but later backed down and said he sending the High Commission staff to
the detention centre where the cocaine courier was being held to have an
interaction with him.
NACOB’s
NACOB had said in a press release on Monday evening that
the suspect “was arrested on the 10th of November, 2014 through the
collaborative effort of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and its British
partners.”
The statement issued in Accra and signed by NACOB’s
Deputy Executive Secretary (E&C) Richard Nii Lante Blankson said that Ms.
Ametefeh travelled on an Austrian passport and not with a Ghanaian diplomatic
passport.
“It is worthy to note that Ms. Nayele Ametefe
travelled on Austrian passport number P4187659 and not on Ghanaian Diplomatic
passport as being speculated. She also had in her possession an ordinary
Ghanaian passport number G0364497 issued on 3rd August, 2012.”
“On the 9th November, 2014, one Ms. Nayele Ametefeh
boarded British Airways flight number BA 078 from Accra to London. She was
arrested at Heathrow International Airport. She had flown on a first class
ticket using travel miles on British Airways point. The ticket had been
purchased on 8th October, 2014 and had been altered three times,” the statement
said.
It added: “In her possession she had two suitcases.
Only one of the suitcases was checked in (Baggage tag number BA 059801) and
nothing of interest was found. In the other suitcase which was believed to be
hand carried onto the plane, 10kgs of cocaine was found among her clothing. The
cocaine were wrapped in one kilo blocks. In her hand bag, she had further two
kilos (blocks).
VVIP
Cocainegate
What NACOB did not explain was where did lady whose
cocaine haul valued at over $5million boarded the plane.
Interestingly,
the Akrasi Sarpong-led NACOB statement was silent on which section of the
airport, Ms. Ametefe had used to board the BA78 flight.
Sources said she passed through the VVIP section
where she frequently used on her travels.
DAILY
GUIDE learnt that Ruby who was suspecting to be having a
Ghanaian Diplomatic passport used the VVIP facility at Kotoka reserved d for
top state officials and important personalities to board the plane for her
route to London, hence escaping hand luggage check at the boarding point where
there are two scanners.
Some are speculating that Ruby was driven straight
to the tarmac for boarding the British Airways flight to London Heathrow.
Victor
Smith’s position
Mr. Smith who granted interview to various radio
stations in Accra strongly defended the Ghanaian authorities.
He said specifically that "the British
authorities never informed us of the lady's arrest and it was our contact at
the Border Control Agency who informed us of the arrest. I then had to gather
more information to send to the authorities in Ghana."
The High Commissioner further said that his checks
with the authorities in London revealed that Ms. Ametefeh did not traveled on a
Diplomatic passport.
“There is no Diplomatic Passport involved; that’s
categorically denied by the British Police and it is not me who is going to influence
them to lie about the passport of the lady. I want it to be established first
of all whether she is a Ghanaian because we’ve had cases in the past where our
neighbours from the sub-region travelled with a Ghanaian passport.”
He further said that “I am not confirming that the
same name (Nayele Ametefeh) is in the two passports but what I’m saying is that
I was given the information that the lady’s name is Nayele Ametefeh and that’s
how the journey started in Accra with Austrian passport,” he said on Oman FM.
Curious
Visit
“I have made arrangement for two of my officers to
go with the British Police to interrogate the lady today (yesterday) to come
out with the whole truth about her true identity, because the speculations are
too much,” he said.
“I have not
seen the lady in question yet and so the officers will today unravel the
identity of the lady...if she is not a Ghanaian, then we will stay out of the
case. I am not basing my findings on speculations in the social media but
rather on the fact from the authorities and if she claims she is also Ruby
Adu-Gyamfi, we will put it on record. It is in my interest and Ghana’s to
establish whether she is a Ghanaian or not,” he stated.
Ms. Ametefeh who is believed to be using the name
Ruby Adu-Gyamfi was arrested at Heathrow Terminal 5 with the high grade stuff
with a street value of about £3.5 million after arriving in London on a British
Airways flight from the Kotoka International Airport, Accra on November 10.
Heathrow
Concern
A senior officer with the British anti-narcotics
smuggling unit Border Force at London Heathrow Mark Owen told Peace FM that it was strange for the
suspect to travel through Kotoka with the weight of such narcotic substance (12kg)
without being noticed by the Ghanaian authorities, suspecting connivance.
He expressed concerned about how the scanners at
Kotoka could not track the cocaine in the first place.
Border Force officers also seized £6,063 in cash on
her.
Ms Ametefeh, 32, was arrested by Border Force and later questioned by investigators from the National Crime Agency’s Border Policing Command and charged with attempting to import a class A drug.
She appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, November 11, and was remanded in custody until her next appearance at Isleworth Crown Court on November 27, 2014.
Audrey’s
Anger
Professor Audrey Gadzekpo of the University of Ghana
rubbished the claim by NACOB that it collaborated with the British Authorities
in the arrest of Ms. Ametefe and said the invitation of Citi FM’s Samuel Attah
Mensah by the BNI over the publication of the lady’s arrest was totally uncalled
for.
“It’s very difficult to imagine the London police
saying that there is a crime that is being committed and they know about it in
London but they will wait till the person comes to Ghana - because the person is enroute to Ghana – so
that the Ghanaian authorities apprehend the person. It doesn’t make sense to
me; I think if you see somebody with a hand luggage full of cocaine in Ghana…you
apprehend the person.”
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