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Police officer in custody over cocaine-turned-soda saga

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The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has detained the Deputy Commander of the Commercial Crime Unit at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters, DSP Gifty Mawuenyega for have alleged dealings with Nana Ama Martins,  the lady at the centre of the recent cocaine-turned-washing soda saga.

DSP Mawuenyega was picked up on December 29, 2011 after investigators from the BNI established that she had had suspicious dealings with the suspect, Nana Martins.

The Daily Graphic reports that there were suspicions that DSP Mawuenyega facilitated the swapping of the cocaine exhibit at the court.

According to the paper, DSP Mawueyega’s unit had nothing to do with the case, yet she was said to have met Nana Martins several times in her office on the blind side of the Police Narcotics Unit which was investigating the case.

A source told the Daily Graphic that, DSP Mawuenyega claimed to have known the suspect since 2008. It said police internal investigations had revealed that a female officer had been in contact with Nana Martins, facilitated the sale of her house and also got her a lawyer immediately she returned from the US after jumping jail and was re-arrested.

According to the source, investigations by the BNI had also established some dealings between DSP Mawuenyega and Nana Martins and her relations.

Nana Martins was acquitted and discharged by the Accra Circuit Court of the charge of possessing cocaine in the trial which was aborted after the court had upheld a submission of ‘no case’ made by counsel for the accused person.

The Accra Circuit Court was puzzled as to how a substance alleged to be cocaine which was seized from the accused person in 2008, confirmed by the police to be cocaine after testing and weighing 1,020 grammes later turned out to be sodium carbonate (commonly known as washing soda) after the court had ordered another test to be conducted by the Ghana Standards Board (GSB).

After more than three years into the trial, the Accra Circuit Court called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to, as a matter of urgency, institute a service inquiry to determine who might have tampered or changed the drug alleged to have been found on the accused person and prescribe the necessary sanctions.

The substance had been in the custody of the police and the court ruled that if the allegation was true, it was a serious indictment on efforts by the law enforcement agencies to curtail the drug menace in the country.

Last December, the government directed the BNI to conduct a full-scale investigation into the case.

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