Four Ghanaians accused of conspiring to smuggle about four tonnes of cocaine worth an estimated €225 million out of Ghana to France have been formally charged and appeared before a Ghana court.
They appeared before the High Court in Accra on Wednesday and were remanded for four weeks to reappear on October 13.
The Narcotics Control Commission named them as Desmond Koranteng Curiel (who also goes by “Paul Kweku Yeboah” or simply “Biggs”), Musah Attah, known as “Kromo,” Kweku Otchere, and Jessica Hartog.
A fifth person wanted in connection with the case, a Dutch national named Jos Leijdekkers, better known by his alias “Bolle Jos,” is still on the run.
The charges against the group are conspiracy to commit a crime, specifically exporting narcotics without a licence from the Health Minister, and the actual exportation of narcotic drugs.
Prosecutors filed the charges on Wednesday, and the case was heard in court not long after.
French customs officers at the port of Dunkirk found nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine hidden inside a container that had shipped in from Ghana on September 10. The drugs had been disguised among plastic waste.
Some of that cocaine was reportedly meant to end up in Antwerp, Belgium.
After the seizure, NACOC moved quickly to arrest three people believed to have links to the shipment, saying at the time that the suspects had been acting on behalf of Bolle Jos and helping him operate in the country.
Since then, investigators have been coordinating with their French counterparts, trying to piece together exactly how the drugs made it out of Ghana in the first place.
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