Top Cop denies knowledge of disappearance
Accra, July 28, GNA - Assistant Commissioner of Police Kofi Boakye on Friday denied his involvement in the disappearance of cocaine on high seas on April 27.

He said if anybody could be linked to the disappearance of the drug from the high seas, it should be someone from the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) since some officials there seem to be showing extreme concern to the extent of organizing people to record him on tape. Speaking at a public hearing before the Georgina Woode Committee in Accra, he said he got involved in the case as the Police Director-General of Operations to unravel the disappearance of the cocaine from high seas.

"Personally I am hydrophobia and there is no way I could be on that ship, although it was being alleged that the Police had earlier been on the ship," he said.

NACOB on April 27, 2006, received intelligence information that a ship on the high seas was suspected to be carrying narcotics drugs. It intercepted the vessel with the assistance of the Ghana Navy. When officials of the NACOB conducted a search on the vessel they discovered a leather bag containing 30 slabs of a whitish substance suspected to be cocaine. This was seized and taken to the Headquarters for safekeeping.

But Intelligence information had it that originally there were about 78 parcels in the vessel with each parcel containing 30 kilograms of cocaine.
It, therefore, suggests that 77 parcels of cocaine each weighing 30 kilograms were taken out of the vessel just before it was intercepted. The Committee is, therefore, among other things, to find out the person or persons who brought the parcels on board the vessel and determine the actual numbers of narcotic drug parcels on the vessel immediately before it was intercepted.
It would determine whether some of the parcels on board the vessel were removed from it before it was intercepted, and, if so, to establish when and how this happened and recommend appropriate punishment. The Committee is also to determine the whereabouts of the parcels of narcotic drugs, if any, which were removed from the vessel and investigate any other issues relating to the loss of the narcotic drug and make recommendations on how to avoid them in the future.
ACP Boakye is being linked to the disappearance of the cocaine since some unknown person had him on tape discussing with some four other people in his house the disappearance of the drugs from the sea. "I have been taped and the impression is being created that I have met some drug dealers," ACP Boakye said.
He said as a Police Officer he was only carrying out his duty of gathering information from people he suspected to be behind the deal. "The way information is gathered is not as important as the way the information is used. We use all sorts of manners as bait to get people to produce information," he told the Committee.
"I suspect there is someone from the Narcotic Control Board, who has organised that I should be taped so that he would know what I know," Mr Boakye said.
He said the whole incident had embarrassed him to the extent that he had difficulty in wearing the Police uniform.