Another Cocaine Scandal

Daily Guide newspaper can confirm that a vessel suspected to be carrying narcotics and sailing towards Ghana was tracked by the Ghana Navy on May 29 and 30. The vessel, MV Jano, however managed to slip away. It was believed to be the vessel that later discharged cocaine into the seas at Nzema to escape arrest, in a report carried in the June 2, 2007 issue of Daily Guide.The people of the area, between May 29 and June 1 had the shock of seeing floating white substances on their seas, instead of the usual ‘green green’ which had been destroying their fishing nets.

Soon after, police men from La Police Station in Accra and some businessmen stormed the area in search of the ‘goods’, offering huge sums of money in exchange for information leading to the white substance.The police officers were arrested and sent to court in addition to being interdicted. Meanwhile further information gathered by Daily Guide indicates that British security agencies had alerted officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) on May 29, 2007 that the suspected boat, flying flags of the Comoros Island was sailing towards the shores of Ghana and that it had earlier been spotted around Cape Verde.

Photographs of the vessel and its nautical position were supplied to the anti-drug agency, and armed with this information, they in turn contacted the Ghana Navy, which had boats for such operations, to assist it to capture the suspected cocaine-laden vessel. The naval boat accordingly sailed off in search of the vessel but returned hours later with disheartening news that it could not trace the boat of the description given. Initially, according to media reports, the naval boat was said to have reported to base that the vessel had been spotted just about 29 nautical miles away and was just about to be captured.

The situation however turned grim for the Navy when the same boat claimed it had lost sight of the vessel. Later, investigations revealed that while the navy was unable to locate MV Jano, a tug-boat from Tema named, “Tropic Sun” had found it on May 31 and replenished it with fresh supplies of food, water and fuel, after which the boat sailed off.The chief engineer of Tropic Sun, Mr. Seth Ofori Mante, confirmed that his tug-boat made contact with MV Jano but claimed they went to its assistance because it sent a distressed call for supplies.Mante said their boat supplied the fugitive vessel with 45 tones of fuel and food. "From where we were, we realised that we also needed five tons of fuel to be able to get there and back. So in all, we loaded 50 tons of fuel and went and gave them the 45 tons and the food we had loaded for them," the chief engineer said.

He said for them as a vessel group, they had to respond to the distressed call because if they found themselves in a similar situation anywhere, they would expect other vessels to come to their aid. While MV Jano eluded the Ghana Navy and NACOB officials, Mante confirmed they located the vessel at deep sea off the coast of Awutu Breku in the Central Region, which he described geographically as north 4, west 1. He disclosed to newsmen that they sailed for about 10 hours to get to the vessel after taking off from Tema. "For us, we just did our job by responding to a distressed call and we did not know where the vessel was going and what it was carrying. “When we returned, officials from NACOB and BNI came here to search our vessel. We did not know the reason but later, we realised it was because we had gone to supply food and fuel to MV Jano.

They found nothing after the search so they left and we have not heard anything again," the engineer explained. The National Security Ministry has however distanced itself from the operations because it was undertaken mainly by officials of NACOB and the Ghana Navy, whom it said failed to involve them for effective coordination. “It’s only when the operation failed that it hinted the BNI to help to investigate the role played by the tug-boat,” a source told Daily Guide. On his part, National Security Minister, Mr. Francis Poku confirmed alongside Col. E.K. Nibo of the Public Relations Directorate of the Ghana Armed Forces, that the Ghana Navy could not locate the vessel with the description it had. “We don’t have boats for such operations, and therefore we can only rely on the Navy which has the capacity.

In any case, I wish reports of this nature will be treated confidentially because the matter was still under investigations,” Mr. Poku cautioned. It would be recalled that the MV Benjamin vessel played a similar hide-and-seek game with the Ghana Navy on the high seas after British intelligence had alerted NACOB of the approaching vessel. Eventually, it sneaked into Ghanaian waters where it discharged its controversial 76 parcels of cocaine, leaving one behind. A fugitive, Asem Dake, alias Limping Man, together with some Koreans who masterminded the operation, escaped the net, while the sailors on the vessel are being tried in court.

Kwabena Amaning, alias Tagor, and Alhaji Issa Abbas are similarly on trial in connection with the same haul of drugs while ACP Kofi Boakye has suffered the penalty of interdiction from the Police Service as a result of the missing parcels and matters arising.