Cocaine Shipment Captured in Ghana

22 May 2009 – The head of the United Nations anti-drug agency today congratulated Ghana on the seizure of a multi-million dollar cocaine shipment in Port Tema earlier this week.

Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said the seizure “shows that law enforcement officials are getting better at reading the warning signs.”

Ghanaian police and customs authorities, working in a Joint Port Control Unit which was established with the support of UNODC in 2008, discovered 72 kilograms of cocaine in a container from Ecuador. The shipment had a street value of around $ 7 million in Europe, UNODC said.

UNODC said Ghanaian law enforcement officials used profiling techniques learned from the UN training, noting that perhaps insiders in the port of Ecuador are cooperating with people in Port Tema to smuggle drugs and falsify customs documents.

This is the second notable success for the Port Tema authorities within a year. Soon after the launch of the UNODC training programme, customs officers intercepted three stolen luxury cars in containers coming from Spain, the agency said.

“Criminal groups should learn that developing countries are no longer a safe haven for smuggling,” stressed Mr. Costa.

UNODC said some 420 million sea containers move around the world every year, with only a tiny fraction of them being inspected.

UNODC and the World Customs Organization have designed the Container Control Programme to assist Governments in developing countries to establish effective controls over the movement of containers and make it harder for terrorists and other criminals to use these for smuggling.

That Programme is now operational in Ecuador, Ghana, Pakistan, Senegal and Turkmenistan, and will be extended to ports in Central Asia and Latin America, UNODC said.

West Africa is a key transit hub for drug shipments en route to Europe. A report released by UNODC in October 2008 claimed that at least 50 tons of cocaine from Latin America are entering West Africa every year, en route to Europe where the drug sells for almost $2 billion.

The Rest @ The united Nations

Two US Soliders Found Dead in Hotel room in Ghana

Jan 1 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Navy sailors were found dead on Tuesday in their hotel room while on shore leave in the West African country of Ghana, the U.S. Navy said.

The cause of death was unknown and was being investigated by Ghanaian authorities in cooperation with U.S. Navy officials, the Navy said in a statement.

"Currently there is no suggestion of foul play," Lieutenant Patrick Foughty, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy Sixth Fleet, told Reuters by telephone from Naples, Italy.

The sailors, who were not identified, were stationed aboard the Fort McHenry, a 600-foot (185-
metre) dock landing ship based in Little Creek, Virginia.

The vessel was docked in the Ghanaian port of Tema, some 18 miles (28 km) east of the capital Accra, as part of a U.S. naval partnership programme in West Africa.

During a six-month mission, the Fort McHenry will train West African navies to fight drug smuggling and maritime security threats in a region which supplies nearly a fifth of U.S. oil imports.

Foughty said the sailor's deaths would not prevent the training mission from going ahead.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

MAOC-N Formed, FARC OPerating in Africa?

By Axel Bugge
LISBON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Seven west European countries on Sunday launched an agency to tackle the ever-changing routes whereby South American cocaine finds its way onto European streets, particularly via West Africa.

The Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) will help national authorities work together to catch cocaine shipments, often through high stakes operations on the open seas.

• Cocaine use has tripled in Europe in the past decade to become the second most used drug in Europe after cannabis and the vast majority of it passes into the EU through Iberia -- Spain and Portugal.
  
• "We are the Atlantic border of Europe," Portuguese Justice Minister Alberto Costa said during a ceremony to inaugurate the agency. It was signed by Portugal, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Britain and the Netherlands.
• About 70 tonnes of cocaine was seized by Spain and Portugal in 2006 out of about 100 tonnes seized in the whole of Europe.
• The decision to establish the agency was in large part a reaction to the growing use of West Africa by South American drug runners as a staging post to Europe.
• "Concern about the growing importance of the African western coast in this trade is one of the raisons d'etre of this centre," said Costa.
• Law enforcement authorities in Portugal have pointed to Nigeria and especially Guinea Bissau as countries South American cocaine passes through on its way to Europe.

COLOMBIANS IN GUINEA BISSAU

• Arrests of Colombians in Guinea-Bissau have prompted concerns that the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) left-wing guerrilla group has established itself there in order to extend drug financing of its operations at home.
• "Whether they are FARC members of not I couldn't say for sure, but clearly we know there are Colombians down there (in West Africa)," said Tim Manhire, the executive director of the new agency. Manhire said this was one angle the agency would pursue with U.S. authorities that are more familiar in dealing with Colombian militants in their use of the drug trade to finance conflict. The U.S. has observer status at the agency.
• "Clearly we will be looking to work with our American colleagues at trying to intervene in that environment," Manhire said.
• The price of cocaine has fallen sharply in Europe in recent years, suggesting more of it is reaching Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addicition, which is also based in Lisbon.
  The Rest @ Reuters Africa

Gaddafi Sues Niger Papers

Gaddafi sues Niger papers for Tuareg rebel claims

Mon 27 Aug 2007, 19:56 GMT

NIAMEY, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is suing two newspapers in Niger for more than $200,000 each after they suggested his government was supporting Tuareg-led rebels in the north of the country, his lawyer said on Monday.

Souley Oumarou said he had presented the complaint against weekly Le Canard Dechaine and bi-monthly Action for damages of 100 million CFA francs ($208,300) each, which would be donated to Niger's National Hospital in the capital Niamey.

"The complaint has been registered and a hearing set for September 17," Oumarou told Reuters. The seven-month-old uprising by light-skinned Tuareg rebels in desolate, uranium-rich northern deserts of Niger has killed more than 40 government troops and left dozens prisoner.

Gaddafi, who has long been an advocate of Tuareg empowerment and an Islamic state spanning the Sahel, has been called upon by President Tandja to mediate in the conflict. Gaddafi called publicly on the rebels, who are seeking a greater share in uranium mining revenues, to lay down their arms.

In a July 23 article entitled "Gaddafi wants a piece of Niger", Le Canard Dechaine alleged the the Libyan leader was supporting the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) to provide leverage for claims over 30,000 square km of Niger territory.

Niger President Mamadou Tandja'sovernment says the French nuclear power firm Areva involved in uranium mining in northern Niger, was providing support to the revolt.

The company and the French government has strongly denied this.
Tuareg revolts shook northern Niger and Mali in the 1990s before a series of peace deals handed the nomadic people greater autonomy, but recent months have seen a resurgence in violence.

In Mali, Tuareg gunmen abducted around 20 soldiers at the weekend in a remote Saharan town and took them off towards Niger.

Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure said at the weekend during a visit to Tripoli that he had agreed with Gaddafi to organise a regional summit to discuss security in the Sahel.

Gaddafi has a long history of involvement in civil conflict in West Africa, including a lengthy war with Chad and support for the leader of Sierra Leone's RUF rebel group, Foday Sankoh, who fought a 1991-2002 civil war against the government.

The Rest @ Ghana Web

The Death of Ghanaians in The Gambia two years ago while in the hands of human smugglers sheds light on the Nexis between al Qaeda and organized criminals that traffic in people, drugs, arms, cash, and whatever else needs to be moved in Africa. Douglas Farah wrote more on the subject recently. What follows is an article about the investigation into their deaths.

-Shimron

ACCRA, Aug 24 (Reuters) - What started as a dream to build a better life in Europe, ended with gunshots, machetes and death at the hands of Gambian soldiers, according to a survivor.
With bullets flying overhead, Ghanaian Martin Kyere scrambled deep into Gambia's forests in the dead of night, the cries for mercy of his fellow migrants ringing in his ears.

Two years on, officials from Ghana are still investigating what happened in July 2005 when eight Ghanaians planning to make the perilous journey to Europe in fishing boats were killed.
Another 44 West Africans, mostly Ghanaians, disappeared and most are feared dead or languishing in Gambia's jails.


"The Gambian president must release the rest or say why they were killed," said Kyere, who has spoken with one person still in a Gambian jail and believes at least 15 others were killed.
A seven-member Ghanaian delegation travels to Gambia on Friday and their inquiry is due to be completed by September, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The visit follows a 2005 agreement between Gambia and Ghana for a joint investigation but human rights groups say Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's government -- accused of imprisoning political opponents and journalists without trial in the former British colony -- has scarcely cooperated.

Read the rest of Kyere's story.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

Ghana Became the Drug Transit Point

Torornto Star: Drug mystery grips Ghana

Massive amount of cocaine missing after raid at sea Drug traffickers allegedly seen at tribal king's palace ACCRA, Ghana—Under the black blanket of an April sky, narcotics control officers raided a boat bobbing in the waves off Ghana's main harbour.

Intelligence reports suggested more than 2,000 kg of South American cocaine was hidden in the boat's hold, packaged in 78 parcels weighing 30 kg each, with a rumoured street value of more than $270 million.

• Instead, the officers returned to shore virtually empty-handed.Only one packet of drugs was found on the boat; of that, another 5 kg went missing after it was submitted as evidence.
• Now a judicial commission looking into who tipped off the drug smugglers is painting a picture of Ghana as a gateway for drugs smuggled from Venezuela or Colombia to European cities in Spain, Portugal and the U.K.Each day's testimony — dissected with gusto on radio call-in shows and splashed across multiple page of the next day's newspapers — brings more claims that Ghanaian cops are in cahoots with South American drug lords.
• According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Dakar, Senegal, officers have seized more than 11.1 tonnes of cocaine en route to West Africa or leaving West Africa for Europe between 2000 and 2004.
• Ivory Coast, Ghana's westerly neighbour, was once seen as the major hub for heroin and cocaine, but since a civil war broke out in 2002, the drug trade has moved to some of the region's more stable countries.
• Ghana's growing image as a drug corridor is made worse by the fact that Eric Amoateng, a member of Parliament, sits in jail in New York on charges of drug trafficking.

Now it seems that a tribal king, usually seen in sumptuous traditional fabrics and dripping with gold trinkets from the mines that dot his accepted kingdom, is implicated.

• Witnesses have testified some of the suspected drug traffickers visited his palace.
• At least one witness alleged the king called for a delay in the police investigation into the missing drugs.
• His brother-in-law is one of four men charged with drug smuggling in connection with the case. (None of the allegations made at the commission have been proven in court)

The numbers certainly support the idea that Ghana is fast becoming a quick route for cocaine working its way to Europe.

• Narcotics control officers monitoring Ghana's international airport seized more than 600 kg of cocaine and another 71.5 kg of heroin in 2004.
• "Most are from so-called stuffers and swallowers, who secrete narcotics in their bodily orifices or swallow them wrapped in condoms, for later retrieval," said Amado Philip de Andrés, deputy regional representative for the UN's office on drugs and crime.
• The sting operation is not high tech — suspected drug couriers are taken to hospital and X-rayed — but that's a massive jump from the 17 kg of cocaine seized in 2000.

The five-member commission investigating the whereabouts of the missing drugs was initially expected to point the finger at the narcotics control board. Then a secret tape-recording of Assistant Police Commissioner Kofi Boakye discussing the missing coke with known drug traffickers was turned over to a local newspaper.

• And the glamorous Ghanaian girlfriend of one of the suspected Venezuelan drug smugglers came forward with the story of a $200,000 bribe she hand-delivered to Boakye.

De Andrés said although few drug officers think politicians are working with drug dealers, there have been several cases where trials have been halted or charges dropped on the instructions of a person in power.

• "It's fair to say that law enforcement in Ghana are generally professional and honest," de Andrés said. "There are numerous examples of the success of Ghanaian law enforcement agencies in fighting organized criminal groups involved in drug trafficking."The West African country is considered by the international community and charities alike to be a model of stability and good governance in a region awash in corruption and conflict.
• Still, most Ghanaians aren't surprised by the idea that the cops may be on the take.More than 90 per cent of people polled by the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development said they'd either bribed or been asked to bribe a police officer.The committee's report on its findings are expected next month.

The Rest @ The Toronto Star