I carried only $1,500 on my travel – Allotey Jacobs

Central Regional Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Allotey Jacobs at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom has revealed that he had only $1,500 dollars on him on his travel abroad.

According to him, there was no way he could travel with a whopping €500,000 as has been alleged was found on him leading to his arrest at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom.

He said if he had that much money, he would have built a skyscraper in Ghana and would not have bothered carrying it abroad.

Rumours went viral on social media on Sunday alleging that Mr Allotey Jacobs was busted for carrying cocaine in Britain, where he was expected to have connected to the United States of America later.

Other reports said the NDC bigwig who is abroad for a business transaction was escorted from the plane and questioned when his flight arrived Sunday morning over a tip-off that he was carrying too much money.

The rumours further said Ghana’s High Commissioner to the UK, Victor Smith had dispatched officials of the High Commission to help Chairman Allotey.

But Allotey Jacobs has since denied his arrest and has vowed to deal ruthlessly with Hopeson Adorye, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) activist who is believed to have started the rumour by publishing it on his Facebook wall.

“I will never allow this rumour to wish away like that, because he cannot destroy my hard won reputation with a figment of his own imagination. How can one manufacture such baseless allegation, and he goes to social media and writes that I’ve been arrested. I traveled with my colleague Board member, Mrs Agbenyeto who’s a former Chief State Attorney, how can I even take this amount being alleged out of Ghana.”

Meanwhile, Hopeson Adorye has insisted that Allotey Jacobs was momentarily arrested and questioned over a case of money laundering Sunday while boarding a flight to the UK.

Adorye claims an account of his friend who was on board the same British airline flight 078 suggested that at Heathrow Airport, UK Security officials approached Jacobs on the flight – questioned him over money laundering issues and for a few minutes walked him out of the craft.

“Of-course I didn’t start this rumours on social media, but a friend who was also travelling to UK on the same flight and was at the business class with Allotey said at Heathrow, some four security officials including three men and a lady walked to Allotey and asked him how much money he was having in his possession. Allotey just told the officials that the money he was carrying was purposely for a government programme; but the officials who were not convinced by Allotey’s response said he’d sometime ago said the same thing. So within some few minutes he was accosted and escorted out with a lady who was sitting beside Allotey on the plane leaving his belongings. The issue even made him delay his next flight to Dallas. And so this person’s account is accurate- he just told me exactly what happened and for me a summary of the whole incidence is that this amounts to questioning and arrest of Allotey Jacobs by UK officials. ” Adorye told Fiifi Banson onAnopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.5 FM Monday.