NACOB destroys $US60m coke bust

Officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) in a joint collaboration exercise with its various responsible agencies on Tuesday afternoon destroyed 413 slabs of cocaine which were brought into the country by four Guyanese nationals and a Ghanaian national with an estimated street value of $ 60 million dollars.

The exercise was executed from an order by the trial judge, Justice C.J. Hoenyenugah, an Appeal court judge, sitting as an additional High Court judge who presided over the case.

This became possible when the Chief State Attorney Alfred Asiamah Sampong, prayed the court to allow officials of NACOB to go ahead and destroy the 413 slabs of cocaine.

The 413 slabs were destroyed at the Accra Acts Centre beach and were done in the full glare of the trial court judge and the court registrar, as well as personnel from the various stakeholder agencies.

The court before pronouncing its judgment against 2nd and 3rd accused persons who were slapped with a 35 years jail sentence, ordered officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) to count the 414 slabs of cocaine in open court.

Meanwhile, one of the slabs which add up to 414, according to Justice Hoenyenugah, is to be kept in the custody of the registrar till the final determination of the fate of the other three alleged accomplices.

The three had earlier pleaded guilty with explanation on December 13. The court, however, rejected their explanation and will be standing trial on Friday 10, 2014.

The court before the destruction exercise granted Forensic Chemists from the Drug Enforcement Administration of the United States of America Department of Justice, the permission to collect 30 randomly selected samples each containing a gram of cocaine from the courtroom for further investigations in the States.

This was to enable the DEA to trace the origin and purity of the drugs to enhance future investigations.

The court’s order was based upon a written request from two agencies namely, the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and the US Embassy with an explanation given by one of the US officials, Laura Michelle Jones, a Forensic Chemist from Virginia, as to why the samples were needed.

Ms Michelle Jones also stated that they were invited by the US Embassy to check the purity of the cocaine to determine the origin of the substance.

It could be recalled that the ship MV ATTIYAH with registration number 000471 was arrested on the deep waters of Ghana when it was sailing from Guyana which led to the seizure of 21 sacks containing 414 slabs of cocaine.

The five suspects, together with the substances, were flown to Accra and handed over to the Narcotics Control Board for investigations.