-NDEA boss avers
June 13, 2016 By Jariatu Bangura
The Executive Director of National Drug Enforcement Agency (NDEA) has averred that Sierra Leone remains a major conduit distributor or transit zone for cocaine along the West African coast for South America trafficking cartels.
Speaking in an exclusive interview to our reporter, Retired Colonel SIM Turay admitted that trafficking of cocaine in Sierra Leone had been going on for several decades and that in 2015 the country established a safe haven for the receipt, storage and trans-shipment of large consignment of cocaine from south America, destined for European and north American markets.
“Some West African countries, namely Nigeria, Guinea, Mali, the Gambia and Guinea- Bissau are also using Sierra Leone as a distribution/transit zone for illegal drugs, especially cocaine which is destined for European and North America markets,” he claimed.
A recent alarming development, he said, was that cocaine was being trafficked through Sierra Leone to countries in east and south-east Asia.
“Another destructive development is that at the domestic level, Sierra Leone is now a customer market for cocaine. Sierra Leone nationals have also been involved in the illegal cocaine trade. Some of them work independently, while others collaborate with foreign nationals,” said the NDEA boss.
He alleged that that certain Lebanese nationals residing in the country have also played a major role in the cocaine trafficking since the country’s independence, although he failed to name names.
“Although many of them are successful businessmen, Sierra Leoneans have always questioned their unexplained wealth,” he said.
Rtd. Col. Turay further stated that the bulk of cocaine trafficked through the country from South America to Western Europe and the United States continue to be shipped in containers by ocean-going vessels.
The vessels, according to him, usually dock at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay, where containers belonging to established cocaine traffickers are hardly checked by law enforcement agencies, including custom officials.
The quay he claimed presently accounts for around 65% of cocaine trafficked through Sierra Leone.
Private trawlers, he said, were also playing increasingly leading role in the trans-shipment of cocaine.
He explained that aside from the cocaine that was being trafficked by air from South American through Lungi International Airport, some nationals of West African countries involved in illegal cocaine business often traffic the banned substance by air from their home countries through Lungi Airport, the sole international airport in the country.
He added that traffickers also utilise speedboats, which deposit the consignment at various points in Freetown before subsequently trans-shipping them by ocean- going vessels or trafficked by air through the airport.
In July 2008, a Cessna 441 made an unauthorised landing at the Lungi Airport and it later turned out that it was carrying some 700kg of cocaine. Justice Nicolas Browne Marke subsequently convicted 15 people, including 7 foreigners, of conspiracy to import cocaine into Sierra Leone.
The convicted foreigners included six South Americans, who were later extradited to the United States, two West Africans, a Cuban-Togolose and Bissau-Guinean. The Sierra Leonean partners in crime included two police officers, an official at the Office of National Security, two air traffic controllers and Ahmed Sesay, sibling of current Minister of Works and Infrastructure, Kemoh Sesay.
Meanwhile, the NDEA boss had several times urged the government and Parliament to increase allocation to the agency. However, his plea seems unheeded as at now despite the looming threat of drugs proliferation in the country and increased usage by a highly volatile youthful population.