*Two more cops busted

JUST ABOUT a year after the MV Benjamin cocaine episode nearly tarnished the image of the Police administration, there are yet some personnel of the Service who have not learnt lessons from the scandal.

GYE NYAME CONCORD has gathered that the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Patrick Acheampong, has in a service memo ordered for the interdiction of two police officers of a special unit within the Service charged with monitoring and apprehending narcotic dealers in the country.

The two, constables Frank Acquah and Bismark Osae, were said to have engaged in narcotics fraud or "merchandizing seized drugs" on the streets of Accra, as Deputy IGP K K Marfo, recently put it.

The two personnel are alleged to have gone on an operation at Fadama, a suburb of Accra, and seized about four parcels of substances believed to be cocaine, only to declare one parcel at the unit office.

The officers then informed their superior officers that they had gone to a drinking spot in Kaneshie where they discovered the substance but could not apprehend the suspects.

But later investigations contradicted the reports of the two officers.

It was also discovered that about four parcels of the substance were retrieved from the drug peddler's home at Fadama. The personnel, however, decided to share their booty without trace and refused to hand the peddler over to the station as the police service procedure requires.

Concord checks at the Police Headquarters have revealed that the two officers are in custody and the IGP has ordered for Service Inquiry to be conducted within seven days.

He has also requested the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to institute criminal proceedings against the two after the investigations.

Further checks by GYE NYAME CONCORD have shown that within the past two weeks, about nine personnel from the Monitors Unit at the Greater Accra Regional headquarters have been arrested over similar cases.

Meantime, the IGP has directed that all personnel in the Greater Accra Monitors Unit be transferred with immediate effect to enable the Service destroy any links the personnel may have formed with some criminals within the region.

It will be recalled that the Chronicle in it 24th April, 2007 edition carried a story in which some personnel of the Monitors Unit in Greater Accra went on an operation in Tema and returned with a substance they said was cocaine. After tests at the laboratory, it was disclosed that the substance was "kokonte" (cassava flour).