The Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) in collaboration with its agencies on Tuesday afternoon destroyed 413 out of the 414 slabs of cocaine which were brought into the country by four Guyanese nationals and a Ghanaian with an estimated street value of $ 60 million dollars.
The banned substances were aboard Guyanese ship MV ATTIYAH with registration number 000471.
The destruction of the busted cocaine was ordered by the Trial Judge, Justice C.J. Hoenyenugah, an Appeal Court Judge, sitting as an additional High Court Judge when he presided over the case between the Republic and the cocaine dealers.
The court also sentenced two of the cocaine dealers, including the Ghanaian, to a total of 35 years imprisonment for their roles in the importing of the banned substance into the country in 2013.The undestroyed, last slab of cocaine, on the orders of Justice Hoenyenugah, would be kept in the custody of the Cpurt Registrar till the fate of the other three alleged accomplices are determined when they stand trial on Friday January 10, 2014.
The 413 slabs of cocaine were destroyed at the Accra Arts Centre beach and were done in the full glare of the Trial Court Judge and the Court Registrar, as well as personnel from the various stakeholder agencies.
Meanwhile before the destruction of the slabs of cocaine, the court granted Forensic Chemists from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States of America Department of Justice permission to collect 30 randomly selected samples each containing a gram of cocaine from the courtroom for further investigations in the States.
This would enable the DEA to trace the origin, purity of the drugs to enhance future investigations.
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