Accra - Four citizens of Guyana and one Ghanaian pleaded guilty on
Friday to charges related to the seizure of a ship carrying tens of millions of
dollars' worth of cocaine, a senior legal official said.
Ghanaian authorities impounded the Guyana-registered MV ATIYAH on
Tuesday and arrested the five when they discovered it was carrying 400kg) of
cocaine worth around $50m, according to a statement by the Ghana Narcotics
Control Board (NACOB).
The five men were charged by a High Court judge with offences
including engaging in a criminal conspiracy and transportation of narcotics without
authority, said the official, who was in court.
"The case was adjourned for three weeks because the full
results of the substance [tests] have not been brought back from the
laboratory," the official said.
The men, who were remanded in custody, told the court they could
not afford a lawyer, he added.
The vessel was monitored at sea and detained by anti-narcotics
officers working with the Ghana Navy once it entered territorial waters, NACOB
said, without giving further details.
In recent years, Latin American drug cartels have increasingly
used West Africa's string of weak coastal states, including Ghana, as transit
points for drugs being smuggled to the lucrative European market.
No comments:
Post a Comment