BNI goes after Ghana’s Most Wanted for assisting cocaine girl...

The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has declared Alhaji Mohammed Alamid Dawood wanted for allegedly helping Nayele Ametefeh, the suspect busted with 12.5 kilogrammes of cocaine, and her two friends to use the VIP Lounge of the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) in Accra.

The wanted man, also known as Alhaji Sani Dawudat, is the Business Development Manager of KELM Engineering Limited located at Kanda in Accra.

Alhaji Dawood is said to have called Abiel Ashitey Armah, a Deputy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is the officer in charge of the VVIP and VIP Unit of the KIA, on phone to allow the ladies to use the VIP Lounge and also help them onto the tarmac to board the airline for London.

Since the news of the arrest of 13 suspects in connection with the cocaine saga, Alhaji Dawood, a resident of Community 20, Lashibi, has gone into hiding.

Sources close to the BNI told the Daily Graphic that Armah told investigators that Alhaji Dawood had made friends with officers at the airport and he became acquainted with him.


Simulation exercise

As part of investigations into the matter, five out of the nine suspects arrested in connection with the cocaine saga were yesterday taken through a simulation exercise to help investigators understand how they managed to go through the KIA.

The suspects included Nana Akua Amponsah and Sadalia Nuhu who were said to have travelled with Ametefeh to the Heathrow Airport but returned to Ghana when they realised Ametefeh had been arrested.

The others were Armah, Theophilus Kissi, a Foreign Affairs protocol officer, and Ahmed Abubakar, a middleman at the airport, otherwise known as 'goro boy'.

The four other suspects were said to be in the custody of the BNI.
Suspects conceal their identity

At exactly 2 p.m. yesterday, the suspects, accompanied by a team of investigators, including National Security operatives and Narcotic Control Board (NACOB) officials, arrived at the KIA.

Amponsah and Nuhu, who did not want to be captured on camera, tried to cover their faces, while some of the investigators shielded them.

While Amponsah, wearing a long blue hooded dress, covered her head with the hood, Nuhu, in a red check trousers and a black jacket, tried to cover her face with a handkerchief.

For more than an hour the two women, with their faces covered, sat chatting with a female investigator, while the investigators and security officers consulted one another as to which of them should brief the press.

They used VIP and not VVIP

After the simulation, the lead investigator, who would not give his name for security reasons, told reporters that the two ladies claimed they had used the VIP Lounge and not the VVIP Lounge of the airport, as earlier reported.

According to the investigator, the ladies said on the day of their departure, they were helped by two officers of the Foreign Affairs Protocol Unit who had been instructed by the officer in charge of the VVIP and VIP Unit of KIA to assist them to access the VIP Lounge.

Investigations also established that they used an entrance reserved for staff of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Airport Security, the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority, NACOB and the BNI at the airport.

Reporters also heard that the two ladies, together with Ametefeh, went through the normal travel check-in processes, as they had earlier checked in their suitcases and went to the VIP Lounge with only their hand luggage which was scanned.

They then went through the VIP Baggage Arrival Hall and then to the VIP Lounge where they waited before boarding the airline to the Heathrow Airport.
Arrested

According to the investigators, the three women travelled out of the country on November 9, 2014, but data at the KIA showed that one of them returned on November 11, 2014.
"However, there is no record of how the other woman returned to Ghana, according to the records of the GIS at the airport," he said.

He said the two ladies were arrested in their homes after news had broken that they had returned to Ghana.

The other suspects were arrested after they had been exposed by a CCTV footage which captured the entry of Ametefeh, Amponsah and Nuhu, accompanied by some officials of the Foreign Affairs Protocol Unit, at the airport.

SOURCE: Graphic.com.gh