Court orders confiscation of Nayele’s $1.6m mansion

The Financial and Tax Court presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah Datsa has ordered the confiscation of the East Legon residence of convicted drug dealer Nayele Ametefe.

The building is one of two properties identified by the state as the proceeds of crime. The other building is located in Kumasi.

Delivering a short Judgment, Justice Mensah Datsa said from all the processes before her, she has concluded that the East Legon property must be confiscated by the State.

However, the second property located in Kumasi cannot be confiscated because the state failed to prove that the jailed Nayele owned the property.

Mother of convicted Nayele, Madam Akua Adubofour, came to court to challenge the State over the decision to mark the two properties as proceeds of crime.

The property estimated at 1.6million dollars would be sold and the revenue derived would be distributed as follows; 50% Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), 20% to Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO), 15% to the consolidated fund and 15% to the Judicial Service of Ghana.

The sharing is in accordance with section 66 of Act 804, the Economic and Organized Crime Office Act, 2010.

Background

Nayele Ametefe, who holds a Ghanaian/Austrian passport was arrested in United Kingdom with 12 kilos of cocaine in November 2014.

She pleaded guilty to carrying cocaine to the UK and was sentenced to eight years, eight months’ imprisonment.

Nayele was sentenced on her own plea by the Isleworth Crown Court in London. The sentence was discounted because of her early guilty plea.

Following her conviction NACOB and the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) filed an application on December 3, 2015 praying the court to grant an order for them to confiscate the properties of Nayele.

The properties included two houses, one at East Legon in Accra and one at Pease in the Ashanti region, an electrical shop known as Night Angels Enterprise, located at Dzorwulu, and six Fidelity Bank accounts with total cash of approximately GH¢23,000.

The court, in a ruling on April 6, 2016 granted the applications and ordered the confiscation of the electrical shop and the six bank accounts, stating that the properties were derived from the proceeds of a crime.

The confiscation order, however, did not include two houses in dispute due to a suit by Nayele’s mother, who is claiming that the houses belonged to her [mum] and not Nayele.