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The hope of a former Member of Parliament (MP) of Nkoranza North in the Brong Ahafo Region, Mr Eric Amoateng, to enjoy his newfound freedom in Ghana after his incarceration in Brooklyn, Eastern District of New York for heroin offences has been dashed. He was whisked away by officials of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) for a debriefing session as soon as he arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on board a Delta Airlines flight from New York to Accra. More than 100 well-wishers of Amoateng, clad in the colours of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), were disappointed as they could not see the man they had come to welcome because NACOB officials took him to their offices for the debriefing. As soon as his session with the officials ended, he was released to go, but unknown to him police personnel from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service had been detailed to arrest him for arriving in the country with a passport that was acquired with fraudulent documents. Amoateng, now aged 61, was said to have acquired the documents while serving his sentence in the United States and travelled with it to Ghana. The former MP was supposed to have returned home with a travelling certificate and not a passport as his old passport expired while he was in prison in the United States. Arrest He is currently being held at the CID Headquarters to assist in investigations as to how he acquired the passport. The Deputy Executive Secretary of the NACOB, Nii Lante Blankson, told the Daily Graphic that the debriefing session was a normal exercise for every ex-convict whose crime was drug related to go through after he or she had been deported. He explained that the debriefing was like a mop-up exercise to enable the security agencies to gather more information on the incident and what happened to him while he was in prison in the US. Mr Blankson said NACOB already had full documentation on Amoateng from the United States but the board still needed to hear from him. Therefore, he was given a special form which he filled and stated that although he was jailed for 10 years he actually spent eight years, eight months and five days in Brooklyn. Work in prison While in prison Amoateng is said to have worked as a clerk for which he was paid a pittance but because he needed to do something to while away the time he read a lot to gain knowledge of how the American system worked. Before his release, he was moved from the facility to the Clinton County Facility, a correctional centre, for a week before his deportation to Ghana. During the debriefing, Amoateng lashed out at his critics who he said decided to make political capital out of the situation, saying NACOB should carry out its duties without fear or favour. Background Mr Amoateng was arrested in the USA on December 11, 2005 for the illegal possession of 136 pounds of heroin. The street value of the drugs was reportedly about $6 million. He had travelled to the USA and disembarked at the John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) with a friend, Nii Okai Adjei. It was reported during his arrest that seven boxes of pottery which had landed at Newark Liberty International Airport from London and destined for the JFK airport a day earlier were found to contain 136 pounds of heroin. He, together with Nii Adjei, was monitored by security personnel as they took delivery of the cargo and sent it to an American self-storage location on Staten Island and were arrested the next day when they went to inspect the goods. Mr Amoateng was sentenced to a 10-year jail term by a US court presided over by Judge David G. Tragger on December 12, 2007. He sent a resignation letter dated February 4, 2007 to the then Speaker of Parliament, Mr Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes, after which a bye-election was held on March 13, 2007, which saw Major Derrick Oduro (rtd) winning as the new Member of Parliament for Nkoranza.