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A 100.1 grams whitish substance suspected to be cocaine has allegedly fled the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority.
The product which was obtained by the Narcotic Control Commission (NACOC) last Sunday, June 7, 2020 at the border of Aflao in the Volta Region has reportedly fled the GRA department.
Francis Torkornoo, the Director-general of NACOC who spoke to Citi FM on the matter revealed after impounding the vehicle that had in its possession the substances somewhere in its fuel tank on Friday, 5 June 2020 and a cash sum of $200,000 wanted to push the car to Accra for further investigation which was swat aside by the customs division heads present.
“When they dropped the fuel tank, there was this false compartment under the vehicle containing various parcels and an amount of $200,000. After the inventory, as expected, NACOC wanted to the bring the vehicle to Accra for investigations to start, but the Customs officers refused, saying that they need to hear from their superiors from Accra,” he told Citi FM.
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Torkornoo added that, “The team had a meeting and another inventory was taken [on Sunday] and this time, one whitish substance weighing 100.1 gram was missing from all that they saw on Friday. So my officers insisted that if the narration of the inventory does not change, they were not going to sign,”.
Again on Eyewitness News, Francis Torkornoo claimed that despite NACOC the nice relationship with Customs Division of the GRA, NACOC has not been enthused about some incidents that have happened in the recent past.
He cited an incident where NACOC seized some suspected banned substance and due to some actions by customs including announcing in the media that it was them who seized the items and that it was cocaine, NACOC was unable to arrest some suspects who were behind the transportation of the banned substance.
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He said his outfit has since written to the Commissioner of Customs to request the transfer of the vehicle to NACOC to allow them to conduct investigations.
“As at now, we have not received any of the parcels to perform a close test to know that really the content has narcotic substances and also if the items are handed to us, we will start our investigations… Nothing has been given to us so we have formally written to the Commission of Customers to transfer the vehicle and all the contents to Narcotics Control Commission. Hitherto, it was something we said they should keep, but they arrogated it to themselves to say that they need clearance before they will take it to their Headquarters before giving to us and it is something that is bizarre.”
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