TWO GHANAIANS ARRESTED AT KIA FOR POSSESSING NACORTICS

23/05/2010
Story:Mary Mensah
The Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) has arrested two Ghanaian-born Dutch nationals and a Nigerian for allegedly possessing substances suspected to be cocaine at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA).
The three were arrested on arrival at the KIA from Brazil on board a South African Airlines and when their luggage was searched, the substances were found hidden in it.
The Head of Operations at NACOB, Mr Dickson Akatsa, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that about 11:30 p.m. on March 8, 2010, operatives of NACOB arrested the three persons as they were going through arrival formalities.
He said the first person to be arrested was Alice Akosua Effah, 53. When her luggage was searched, three parcels of a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine weighing 7.8 kilos were found hidden in it.
He said Alice, a Ghanaian-born Dutch national resident in Amsterdam, upon interrogation, told the officials that one Natasha, a Brazilian also living in Amsterdam, had introduced her to the trade.
She claimed that on February 18, 2010, the said Natasha took her to Brazil to buy the drugs. She said she was introduced to a Ghanaian by name Kwabena, resident in Brazil, who supplied them with the drugs to be delivered to an unnamed person in Accra for a fee of $8,000.
On the same day, Mercy Vivian Quao, 52, also a Ghanaian-born Dutch citizen resident in Amsterdam who was on the same flight with Alice, was found to have concealed four kilos of a substance suspected to be cocaine in her luggage.
Upon interrogation, she stated that one Ghanaian woman by name Akosua, also living in Amsterdam, had sponsored her to Brazil where one Kojo, a Ghanaian resident in Brazil, gave her the drugs to be delivered in Accra for a fee of $10,000.
Mr Akatsa said the third person was a Nigerian by name Charles Emeka Ngige, 46, who was taken through a body scanner on suspicion that he had injected illicit drugs.
He said it was detected that he had foreign materials in his stomach and upon interrogation, he admitted swallowing 80 pellets of a drug suspected to be cocaine.
Ngige claimed that another Nigerian, by name Jude, domiciled in Brazil, gave him the drugs to be given to another person in Lagos for a fee of $3,000.
Mr Akatsa indicated that Ngige had since expelled all 80 pellets, all of which tested positive for cocaine.
He said all the arrested persons would be arraigned, while samples of the drugs would be sent to the Ghana Standards Board for further examination.