Drug suspect absconds custody mysteriously
Questions arise over quantity seized
Accra, April 12 (Chronicle) -- The Ghana Police Service has been hit by another Cocaine scandal that has very complex links, suggesting possible underhand dealings by some officers at the Greater Accra Regional Command of the security institution.

The story started unfolding when one officer of the Monitors Unit (created by ACP Kofi Boakye, the Director General of Police Operation who was interdicted last year on drug-related issues) at the Regional Police Command, Lance Corporal Russel Ekow, was arrested on a drug-related matter about a fortnight ago by men from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at the national Headquarters of the Service.

The Chronicle’s follow-up investigations into the matter, after a publication on the arrest of the police officer last week, has since revealed that there is more to the issue than just the issue of police arresting police over cocaine.

This paper can reveal that originally, Ekow and other officers from the Monitors Unit, arrested one Richard Ackon Mensah, the actual suspected drug dealer who was carrying parcels of the narcotic substance and upon arrival at the command base, the suspected drug dealer was sent to the La Police Station to be detained by the police there pending further investigations and subsequent trial in court.

The Chronicle learnt that when Ekow and his group from the Monitors Unit returned to the regional command station, they tendered in only a parcel of cocaine as what was retrieved from the suspected dealer who had been detained at the La Police Station.

In the statement of the suspect, however, he is said to have revealed that the actual quantity he was carrying at the time he was arrested was eight parcels and not one, as had been presented by the police. The suspect then went on to threaten that if the police were bent on prosecuting him in Court, then he would expose all those who had benefited from the booty, including some senior officers and those who arrested him.

The threat is said to have sent shivers down the spines of some top officials who had apparently become some thousands of dollars richer on the issue and the next option was to strategize on how to avoid being exposed by the suspect.

Days after the revelation and threat by the suspected drug dealer, the same Ekow, was, under what our sources described as a ‘suspicious move’, detailed by the Regional Command to go and bring the suspect from the La police station to the Regional Headquarters.

As if to confirm the suspicions of some officers, Ekow went to the La Police Station, got the suspect released to him but returned to the regional headquarters without the suspect. His explanation, according to Regional Police Commander, DCOP Douglas Akrofi Asiedu, who spoke to the paper on the issue yesterday, was that Ackon managed to abscond on their way to the Regional Headquarters.

Yesterday, the Regional Commander told these reporters at his office that he was not aware of issues related to cocaine but said what he was aware of was that Ekow had been given a ten-day ultimatum to produce the suspect. “So what I know is about the prisoner-escape, for which he was to face service enquiry,” he added.

The DCOP said he had heard the CID headquarters had arrested Ekow on a drug-related matter but that was not under his domain.

Though it was clear that Ackon had been arrested on the same cocaine case on which Ekow was later arrested, the Regional Commander insisted that he did not know anything about the drugs. He admitted however that Ackon was arrested by Policemen from the Monitors Unit, which operates directly under the Regional Command.

“This is laughable. The Regional Commander says he doesn’t know anything about a drug case when it was the same command that was investigating the case and after one parcel was brought to the regional headquarters by the police officers,” a source lamented to the paper.

Meanwhile, last week, a senior police officer from the regional command confirmed that men from the Monitors Unit had arrested the drug suspect and returned with a parcel of cocaine, which was yet to be submitted to the police laboratory for examination.

Meanwhile, The Chronicle is still investigating reasons why other police officers who together with Ekow arrested Ackon have not been queried on the incident, after the latter had revealed in his statement that he was actually arrested with eight parcels but not one, as was tendered by the police officers.

So far the paper has managed to obtain the names of those who were part of the operational group that arrested the suspected drug dealer who has absconded mysteriously, only as Ikaija, Isaac, Collins and Agbloglah.

“If there is nothing fishy going on and the matter is to be treated with all the seriousness it requires, all those policemen who went out with Ekow and arrested the dealer should have also been arrested by now. Are they saying that if they went out together and arrested the man together, Ekow could have taken some of the drugs without their knowledge? Even if that is possible they ought to be interrogated, so that the truth of the matter can come out and save the image of the Police Service,” an officer stated angrily.

The Chronicle has further gathered that two vehicles belonging to Lance Corporal Ekow, have since been taken away by the police for investigations on how they were acquired by the junior ranked policeman.