Information reaching DAILY GUIDE indicates that the Ghanaian woman, Nayele Ametefeh, aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi, aka Angel, who was arrested with 12.5 kilos of cocaine at the Heathrow Airport in London on November 10, 2014 did not travel alone, but with two other ladies whose whereabouts are unknown.
Sources say she left Accra in the company of the two other ladies who are believed to be part of the cocaine ring that was smashed by the British law enforcement agents.
However, the two ladies allegedly fled after seeing their ‘baroness’ grabbed by the British security system.
DAILY GUIDE learnt that the replay of the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) recordings indicated that Ruby Adu-Gyamfi used the VVIP wing together with her colleagues for the trip, and this was facilitated by some top state officials.
Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane-Boamah, had said on Radio Gold’s news analysis programme, Alhaji & Alhaji, at the weekend that three people who allegedly aided Nayele Ametefeh had been arrested to help unravel the mystery of how the drug baroness used the VVIP for drug trade leading to her arrest in London.
It later turned out that a senior official with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nii Ashietey Armah, who is in charge of the VVIP section, and two other officers, Ahmed Abubakar and Theophilus Kissi, were the people picked up for questioning in connection with Nayele Ametefeh’s arrest.
According to the source, a careful review of the CCTV images showed that two other ladies who also allegedly had 5kgs each of the cocaine passed through the VVIP section in the company of Nayele Ametefeh to board the BA078 flight to Heathrow.
Furthermore, the Alhaji whose name came up strongly during the initial interrogation of the three arrested people has been identified as one Alhaji Dauda, who is currently at large.
He was said to have placed a telephone call to the arrested VVIP officials and told them his ‘people’ were to travel and needed their assistance in boarding formalities.
Reports in the United Kingdom indicate that upon realising they were being monitored at Heathrow, the two colleagues of Nayele Ametefeh allegedly left their stuff behind and bolted, but the ‘ring leader’ mustered courage and surged forward, brandishing her diplomatic passport which the NDC government is vehemently denying it had issued her.
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, MP for Assin Central, appears to have lent credence to these facts when he told Citi FM over the weekend that the two ladies in question reportedly returned to Accra the same day and subsequently absconded to neighbouring Togo.
The Mr Agyapong’s version of events and other mind-blowing allegations he made have gone unchallenged by the NDC government and its communications team.
Emerging reports indicate that Nayele Ametefeh also uses many names on different travelling documents.
Apart from Nayele Ametefeh, she is reported to be using Angel, Ruby Adu-Gyamfi and now Irene Tawiah among others.
On that fateful day at the Heathrow Airport, she was said to be carrying passports issued by the governments of both Austria and Ghana with the name Nayele Ametefeh in them.
The government, however, continues to dispute the diplomatic passport bit even though an Austrian newspaper, Kronen Zeitung, published that Ruby brandished a diplomatic passport when security details at the Heathrow Airport, who were suspicious, stopped her.
She was said to be carrying three passports at the time of her arrest, but it is still unclear what name she had on the third passport.
The arrest of the drug dealer appears to have embarrassed the government, leading to the dissolution of the Governing Board of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB).
In an obvious attempt at a cover-, NACOB had claimed that it collaborated with its British counterparts in arresting the drug baroness.
It took a terse statement from the British High Commission in Accra to dismiss the collaboration assertion.
According to the statement by the High Commission, even though the UK authorities have been working closely with NACOB since 2006, they “had no prior knowledge of the intentions of Ms Nayele Ametefeh before flying from Accra to London on 9/10 November.
“UK authorities work closely with NACOB to ensure that, wherever possible, any potential drug trafficker to the UK from Ghana is arrested here in Ghana and not permitted to board a flight in order to traffic drugs,” the statement emphasised.
NACOB had said in a press release last week Monday that the suspect “was arrested on the 10th of November, 2014 through the collaborative effort of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) and its British partners.”
The statement signed by NACOB’s Deputy Executive Secretary (E&C) Richard Nii Lante Blankson said that Ms Ametefeh travelled on an Austrian passport.
“It is worthy to note that Ms Nayele Ametefe travelled on Austrian passport number P4187659 and not on Ghanaian Diplomatic passport as being speculated. She also had in her possession an ordinary Ghanaian passport number G0364497 issued on 3rd August, 2012.”
Ruby is said to have had her luggage brought safely into the first-class section of the particular British Airways flight using her connections in the Ghanaian establishment.
Sources close to the operation that nailed her say that Ruby was spotted by other first class passengers trying to fit 2kg of her consignment into her handbag after it became difficult for the 12.5kg drug to enter the luggage compartment of the plane.
These passengers alerted the crew members who in turn informed ground staff at Heathrow, who informed the Border Security, leading to her arrest.
On arrival at Heathrow, Border Security officials, who had ordered only the first-class passengers to disembark, quickly asked her to step aside to be searched.
This request is said to have infuriated Ruby, who questioned the security officials, brandishing her Ghanaian diplomatic passport in the process.
Sources say upon her arrest, three top officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States quickly jetted off to London, within four hours of her arrest, to interrogate her on various matters of concern to American officials in their unending war on narcotics.
