Liberia has shown drug cartels that handing a government official in West Africa a bag of money does not always guarantee an easy transit point for cocaine to Europe and the US, a drug expert said.
Instead they used this scenario to stage what the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) terms its most complex and lengthy undercover operation in Africa.
And in so doing they smashed a plot to transit over US$100 million of cocaine through Liberia: a plot which, according to court documents, implicated the Colombians rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC).
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf declared in a statement “Liberia is officially closed for business to the narcotics trade” and the west African nation drew kudos at home and abroad for its role in Operation Relentless.
TWO-YEAR STING
The two-year sting led to the arrest of eight people this week and involved the President’s son as an undercover mole.
Russell Benson, DEA regional director for Europe and Africa, said on Wednesday that Liberia had proved the often troubled region was not necessarily an easy target.
“Instead of accepting a bag full of money, they decided we are going to fight them and decided to enforce the rule of law,” he said.
Liberia approached the DEA in 2007 when drug traffickers tried to bribe high-level officials, including the president’s son Fumbah Sirleaf, who heads the country’s national security agency.
“We have seen very significant drug traffickers try to corrupt officials at the highest level to gain what they need to gain, access to a private airport to fly in private planes laden with cocaine, or a sea point,” Benson said. “They have been able to successfully do it before. In this case we utilized that scenario and used it against them.”
In the past decade, cocaine has increasingly been trafficked from Colombia and Venezuela through West African countries such as Guinea-Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Sierra Leone, Togo, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia.
“Several of these countries have undergone very dramatic issues and problems as a result of this cocaine trafficking ... there isn’t one country on that west coast that hasn’t been touched in a very negative way,” Benson said.
Liberian Information Minister Norris Tweh said the government was “proud of the job well done” by Fumbah Sirleaf.
The suspects include a host of prolific drug traffickers including a Russian pilot, a Nigerian who has served long sentences in the US for heroin trafficking, and a Ghanaian with extensive knowledge of maritime navigation.
GOING TO AMERICA
Five defendants have already been transferred to the US to be charged; two are on their way and one, arrested in Spain, remains in custody there.
This is the first time in 30 years Liberia has transferred suspects to the US on drug-related charges, the DEA said in a statement.
According to the indictment, the charges involve planned shipments of cocaine — one at 4,000kg with a retail value of US$100 million, and two more that totaled 2,000kg, it said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS