Court orders sale of Nayele’s $1.6m East Legon home

The Financial and Tax Court has ordered that the $1.6million East Legon residence of convicted drug courier Nayele Ametefe be confiscated by the state.

It is to be sold and 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.

The court, presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah Datsa said the property has been proven to be proceeds of Nayele Ametefe’s drug dealing.

Prosecutors could, however, not prove that a second property in Kumasi, also belonged to the Ghanaian/Austrian who is serving an eight-year term in the UK.

The confiscation of her home comes just a month after the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) donated several expensive items (furniture, some with a price tag of GHS3,200) confiscated from Night Angels, a shop belonging to Nayele, to three rehab centres in Ghana.

The donation was done on Wednesday, 21 June.

Nayele Ametefe was arrested at Heathrow Airport in 2014 with 12kg of cocaine and has since been handed an eight-year jail term by the Isleworth Crown Court in the UK.

A week earlier, former Executive Secretary of NACOB Akrasi Sarpong revealed that Nayele, until her arrest in the UK, hired BMWs in Ghana on a daily basis at a great cost.

According to him, Nayele’s ostentatious lifestyle raised the suspicions of NACOB officials who then placed her under close surveillance until her arrest in the United Kingdom.

Speaking on UTV on Friday June 16, Mr Sarpong said: “In 2009, she was the first person we called for when I was at NACOB and she went underground. At that time in 2009, she was renting BMWs on a daily basis for a huge sum of money.”