Sierra Leone: 600 kilo of cocaine seized

  1. Posted on Tuesday 15 July 2008 - 09:30
    Murtala
    Image of Murtala
    Mohamed Murtala Kamara, AfricaNews reporter in Freetown, Sierra Leone
    Senior airport authorities in Lungi and the crew members were arrested on Monday after an aircraft landed and unloaded 600 kilo of cocaine that was later seized. Police confirmed and announced that this was the biggest seizure made by Sierra Leone's police.
    cocaine_coke
    All started when a white small cargo plane with a Venezuelan registration landed at 3 am on Monday. Immediately after landing the crew got off from the plane and boarded a waiting van which drove through the perimeter of the airport fence to an unknown destination.

    The airport authorities quickly went to inspect the plane and they later found in it 600Kilo Gram Cocaine which is estimated at around 35 million dollars, and 5 loaded Kalashnikov assault rifles.

    According to Sierra Leone Information Minister Hon. Ibrahim Ben. Kargbo, it is not clear whether the plane was making a transition for fuel or whether they came to land and make a deposit.

    Sierra Leone’s President who was returning from one of his official trips oversees visited the scene and felt very embarrassed for a whole cargo plane to be abandoned at the Lungi airport.

    Experts say West Africa has become a transit point for South America drugs cartel who find this route very easy to their onwards European markets. It could be recalled that a similar ship full with barrels of cocaine was also intercepted in the Liberian water by French security officers.

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