The airport security chief, Solomon Adelaquaye, 48, and two Nigerians - Frank Muodum, and Celestine Ofor Orjinweke - were arrested in New York on May 9. It was not clear why they travelled to the US ahead of their arrest and the US embassy in Accra did not immediately respond to enquiries. Samuel Antonio Pinedo-Rueda, 72, was arrested in Colombia on May 16 and is awaiting extradition, the DEA said. Ghana's narcotics bureau said Adelaquaye was the managing director of a private firm called Sohin Security Checks Ltd, which had managed to secure lucrative government security contracts at airports across the country.
Documents filed to a federal court in New York, where the group has been charged, said the heroin came from Afghanistan, which had been brought to Ghana by Pinedo-Rueda.
Analysts say Ghana, a nation of some 25 million people, is an emerging trafficking hub for South American and Asian narcotics destined for sale in the US and Europe. Transportation infrastructure is advanced compared to other countries in west Africa, but corruption among customs and port officials remains rampant, according to analysts.
Back in 2010, Mr Adelaquaye and two associates John Mensah, and Aaron Tetteh were involved in another scandal in which entry documents processed by Sohin Security Checks Ltd, for an American businessman, turned out to be fake when inspected by the Ghana Immigration Service.
The American businessman, David K who arrived in Ghana in 2010 to purchase gold worth tens of thousands of dollars but but was duped in a 419 scam. The cover company in the gold scam was All Star Associates Ltd. operated by Solomon Adelaquaye of Sohin Security Checks Ltd who was also CEO All Star.
Again in January 2013 eighty million dollars worth of Ghana’s gold, that was being transported to Iran, was seized at a Turkish airport because there were no documents covering the cargo. Evidence seems to suggest that Mr Solomon Adelaquaye may have also engineered and carried out that gold scam too. Both cases were investigated by the CID but charges were never brought forward.
The charge sheet of the West African DTO indicated that on or about February 1, 2012, in Accra, Pinedo-Rueda and Muodum met with two confidential sources (labeled as CS-1 and CS-2), who work for the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
At the said meeting, CS-1 introduced Pinedo-Rueda and Muodum to CS-2, who posed as a Colombian narcotics trafficker who was interested in obtaining Afghan heroin to sell in New York.
Again, on February 2, 2012, the alleged drug barons told the undercover agents that Adelaquaye was responsible for security at the Kotoka International Airport and that one of the agents (CS-2) could safely move heroin through the airport.
According to the facts available to the New York District Court, from about February 8, 2012 to February 22, 2012, Pinedo-Rueda spoke by phone with CS-2, which the latter recorded.
In the said conversation, it was agreed that CS-2 would pay Pinedo-Rueda $28,000 for one kilogram of heroin and also pay Adelaquaye $8,000 to guarantee the safe passage of the heroin through Kotoka International Airport.
The New York Court was also told that on or about February 21, 2012, in Accra, Ghana, Pinedo-Rueda, Muodum and Orjinweke met with CS-1 and a third confidential source working for the DEA (CS-3).
During the meeting, CS-3 posed as CS-2′s New York City-based heroin distributor who would transport the heroin to New York City for distribution in and around Manhattan and Bronx.
On February 22, 2012, the undercover agents gave Orjinweke $28,000 cash at a hotel in Accra for the supply of the heroin.
Following this, Adelaquaye then instructed CS-3 to give the computer to an associate of his and after CS-3 had passed through the security checkpoint at the airport, the laptop was returned to him.
“Also at that meeting, CS-3 gave Adelaquaye $6,000 (£3,900) cash to guarantee the safe passage of the heroin through the airport,” the court was informed.
The US undercover agents, according to the facts before court, later sent Adelaquaye a further $4,000 from New York.
In May 2013, Adelaquaye, Muodum, and Orjinweke further agreed that one of the CSs would supply them with 3,000 kilograms of cocaine and that in exchange, they would supply the CS with a quantity of heroin of equivalent value, to be delivered to the United States in 25-kilogram increments.
Sohin Security Checks Ltd
The story of how West African DTO gained control of airport security began in February 2009, the acting National Security Coordinator, Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey (Rtd) issued a directive asking the various state institutions operating at the airport not to renew contracts they had with the various security companies operating there, no reason was given. The GACL board also dismissed the Managing Director of the GACL, Elizabeth Annor Sackey and her deputy Yaw Kwakwa. Both were relieved of their appointments without any specific reason.
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| Lt. Col. Gbevlo Lartey |
Next Mr Solomon Adelaquaye, managed to secure an operating license as a recognized private security company only three months before he was actually awarded the contract, even though the basic requirements, as stated on the tender document, required a company to have 6 years experience before it would be awarded the contract.
The then newly appointed Managing Director (Mrs. Doreen Owusu Fianko) of the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL), indicated then that there was nothing wrong with the termination of the contracts of the security companies. According to the Daily Guide, Mr Gbevlo Lartey and the GACL Board were said to have circumvented laid-down rules and appointed Sohin Security, a company which had no prior experience in handling security at the airport or anywhere else. The question that begs to be asked is how a 3 month old company, with no prior security experience, headed by a major drug trafficker, passed through the scrutiny of the the national security led by Col. Gbevlo-Lartey and won the no bid contract to provide security services at an entry point such as the Kotoka International Airport and other airports in the country for five years.
In January 2013 another member of the same West African DTO Mustapha Issaka Zico, 41 was sentenced to 18 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for conspiring to import heroin from Ghana into the United States and ordered to forfeit $110,000.
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| Doreen Owusu Fianko (GACL) |
Zico was found guilty Jan. 25 following a three-day trial that found him to be one of the ringleaders of a multi-kilogram heroin trafficking organization in Ghana. Evidence showed that Zico and his co-conspirators paid off airport officials in Ghana to allow safe passage of the heroin out of the country; frequently from the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana, to Dulles International Airport and other airports around the country.
Zico was directly involved in several heroin shipments and directed the activities of previously convicted co-conspirators Edmund Darkwah, Fred Brobbey and Matilda Antwi, all of whom pled guilty. Zico shared leadership of the conspiracy with Edward Macauley, who was also convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia and sentenced to 14 yeras imprisonment.
Five defendants were extradited from Ghana to stand trial in the Eastern District of Virginia after coordinated arrests by the Ghanaian Narcotics Control Board, while other co-conspirators were arrested in New York, Maryland and Virginia on July 14, 2011. Still more defendants were charged, arrested, and extradited from Ghana in 2012. In all, 11 co-conspirators were convicted. These earlier arrests likely led to information that helped the DEA set up the sting operation that lead to the arrest of the airport security chief.
The drugs were smuggled through Dulles International Airport through a variety of methods: special compartments built into carry-on luggage, attached to underwear. In one case, the smugglers had sewn two pounds of heroin into a courier’s wig. The organization recruited Ghanaian citizens living legally in the U.S. to act as couriers, who were paid up to $15,000 per trip. Airport officials in Ghana received bribes of $2,000 or more to look the other way.
When the charges in this case were announced last year, the Drug Enforcement Administration said it reflects the current strategy of targeting smugglers in their home countries. The DEA has agents in more than 60 countries working international cases.