British teenager drug couriers lied to parents

Two 16-year-old British girls arrested in Ghana for allegedly trying to smuggle £300,000 of cocaine into Britain had told their parents they were going on a school trip to France.

Yetonde Diya and Yasemin Vatansever, from Islington, North London, are said to have been promised £3,000 each for bringing back two laptop bags by a Ghanaian man they met in London a month ago.

According to Ghanaian police the pair, who attended Islington Arts and Media School, had had all their living expenses paid for in Ghana since they arrived there on June 26.

They were coming back on a late British Airways flight on July 2 when they were arrested and have been held in custody ever since.

Tonight they were in a female cell at the juvenile detention centre, a hot and sticky room with small barred windows hung with mosquito netting on the ground floor of the police station in central Accra.

Yasemin, in a green t-shirt and black trousers, clutched a British High Commission calling card and did not speak when visited by The Times.

Yetonde, dressed in a white t-shirt with a stars and stripes motif and jeans, her braided hair piled high on her head said they were being treated well but would not comment until her lawyer had been contacted.

According to their police statement they were met in Accra by two young Ghanaians - Emmanuel and Kwami.

Mark Ewuntomah, deputy director at the Ghanaian Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) who interviewed them said “they were upset and are regretting what they have done. When I spoke to them they were crying.”

Officers from NACOB, who have been trained by British customs officers, saw them acting suspiciously at Accra's Kotoka International airport and pulled them over as they were heading to the aircraft.

Their luggage was searched and 6.5kg (14lb) of cocaine was allegedly found, apparently hidden in two laptop bags the girls had been given.

The two have appeared before a court and been provisionally charged with "attempting to export a controlled substance without a licence" and have been remanded in custody.

They are likely to stand trial before a juvenile court in Ghana. If convicted, as minors they would serve five to ten years.

A source at NACOB told The Times: “They were given free tickets to come to Ghana and promised £3,000 each for bringing back two laptops.

“Their hotel was paid for and all their living expenses were met. They met a Ghanaian man called Jay in London about a month ago and he set it up.”

Miss Vatansever’s sister, Shanel, 19, said she is “worried sick” about her.

Speaking from a mother and baby unit in London after giving birth a few days ago she told The Times: “I had no idea she’d gone to Ghana, I’d heard she was going to France. She didn't tell me because she knew I’d stop her. I’ve been trying to ring her but I can't get through.”

She said her sister, who was born in Britain to a family originally from Turkish Cyprus, wanted to be a social worker, and has a place to study social work at college.

She is in Ghana with a British schoolfriend of Ghanian origin, her sister said, adding: “I thought I was close to my sister. I thought she could talk to me, but obviously not.”

She said their parents were quite strict. “She doesn't smoke or drink or go out clubbing. She loves singing. She was stressing about her exams and thought she'd done badly, even though she'd been revising all the time.

“Hopefully my family will go out to Ghana. She's normally a sensible girl and hearing all this surprises me. She's not a raver, she's a quiet girl.”

Officers from the NACOB have been part of Operation Westbridge, a project set up by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) in conjunction with the Ghanaian authorities to combat drug smugglers using Accra airport as a gateway to Europe.

The arrests have only just been made public as Ghanaian police have been trying to find out who gave the girls the drugs. Detectives in this country have also been carrying out their own inquiries.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said that officers from the British Embassy have been supporting the two girls and had visited them almost daily.

Operation Westbridge was set up in November 2006 to tackle rising levels of cocaine smuggling from Ghana, after South American drugs cartels increasingly targeted West Africa as a transit route to channel drugs into Europe and the United States.

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Annual Drug Report 2006 identified West Africa as a key staging post for drugs mules coming to Britain. The quantity of cocaine seized by police in Ghana jumped 4,000 per cent in 2004, from 15kg in 2003 to 617kg. In the same period cocaine seizures worldwide rose by 19 per cent.