...NACOB finally releases seized cars, but Interpol re-seizes them

Last Friday, the Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) finally released the three classy cars that had been at the center of a deep controversy to Mr. Adjei Lartey, counsel for Mohammed Ibrahim Kamil, a convicted cocaine dealer. The release that signaled NACOB’s compliance with a court order and a possible end to the rigmarole between the Board and the convicted baron’s lawyer, could not pass without a dramatic twist that denied the lawyer the benefit of the court ruling ordering the release of the cars to him, and which NACOB had failed to comply with for sometime now.

The Chronicle gathered that just after the release of the cars that were seized by NACOB over a year ago and kept at the premises of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), personnel from the Interpol Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service re-seized the cars before they could even be moved.

Last Wednesday, The Chronicle revealed the deep controversy surrounding the seized prized cars, a BMW X5, Mercedes Benz car and a Jaguar.

The paper indicated that NACOB had failed to release the cars despite a court order because of what our sources said was the Board’s contention that the cars ought not to be released.

The paper also revealed on the basis of investigations that were conducted at the Drivers and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) that the number plates on the BMW X5, GR 8844 U, and that of the Jaguar Saloon car, GT 8957 U, were faked, as it was discovered that those numbers were the official registration numbers of other vehicles.

The head of Interpol, Mr. Frank Kwofie, confirmed yesterday that the cars were seized last Friday.

He told the paper in his office at the CID headquarters that the cars were seized to allow for further investigations to be conducted to ascertain the real ownership of the cars, since questions had been raised about the ownership of two of the cars.

He said the cars were currently in the custody of the police.

Asked whether the police could also be cited for contempt for flouting the court order for the release of the cars, he explained that that could not be the case because the release of the cars by NACOB was a compliance of the order and that the police’s seizure of the cars again was a fresh action altogether.

The Chronicle’s publication that exposed the controversy over the three cars and the faking of the number plates on the two, attracted massive flak from a senior lawyer, Mr. Etwie Attah Akyea, who ranted on Radio Gold, an Accra-based private radio station, on the day of the story, condemning the attitude of officials of NACOB for what he thought was a contemptuous act on its part for failing to release the cars in defiance of the court order.

Mr. Attah Akyea – who together with his junior colleague, Kwame Akuffo, initially represented one of the suspected cocaine dealers in the East Legon cocaine case and picked for themselves a whopping $50,000 in consultation fee - did not spare The Chronicle in his condemnation, as he fumed and castigated journalists whom he saw as trying to act as though they were lawyers.