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Crime & Punishment of Wednesday, 2 May 2007

Source: GNA

Cocaine Venezuelans say they were in Ghana for gold business

Accra, May 2, GNA - Two Venezuelans involved in the 588-kilogramme cocaine intercepted by the police at East Legon said they arrived in the country to transact gold business and not drugs.

Joel Meija Duarte Moises, a 35-year-old machine operator and Italio Gervasio Rosero a.k.a. Italio Cabeza Castillo, 38, a businessman, said they did not know anything about the drugs found at East Legon, Mepasem. Detective Chief Inspector Godfred Ernest Frimpong said this when he tendered statements of the accused persons in evidence at the Fast Track High Court in Accra on Wednesday.

The accused persons are being held for conspiracy to commit crime, importing 588-kilograms of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority. They have pleaded not guilty and have been remanded into police custody by the Court.

The third Venezuelan, Vasquez Gerado Duarte David, a.k.a. Bude or Shamo is at large.

Continuing with his evidence in chief, Detective Chief Inspector Frimpong said Moises indicated in his charge statement, dated 28 June 2006 that, he arrived in Ghana on board an Alitalia flight to transact gold business, as gold and diamond were cheap in Ghana. The investigator said Moises said when he arrived he was picked up by Shamo and sent to a house at East Legon. As a tourist, Detective Inspector Frimpong said, Shamo took Moises' passport from him.

Moises in his statement said Shamo demanded that he gave him money to purchase gold before releasing his passport. The investigator said Moises denied knowing the owner of the house at East Legon.

The investigator also tendered Castillo's statements in evidence. According to him Castillo stated that he was engaged in small-scale mining in Venezuela and arrived in the country on 19 November 2005 as a tourist.

Detective Chief Inspector Frimpong said Castillo also said he came to conduct feasibility study on the prices of gold. On November 21, 2005 witness said, one Marcko met Castillo on his arrival.

The investigator said Castillo maintained that he was arrested outside the House at East Legon and escorted to the house. According to Castillo, he had never met Moises adding that he was residing in a hotel whose name he could not remember. Detective Frimpong said Castillo was not able to lead the team of investigators to the said hotel.

Witness said further investigations indicated that Moises is a brother of Vasquez who was also known as Shamo or Bude and that Vasquez facilitated the arrival of Moises.

According to the witness, Vasquez operated a firm known as Compinchez with three directors and registered it at the Registrar-General's Department.

When asked what he had done to effect the arrest of Vasquez, the investigator said the Police obtained an arrest warrant from the Regional Tribunal on March 10, 2006.

According to him, the Police on March 15 published the photographs of Vasquez in the media but had not been able to execute the arrest warrant because he cannot be traced.

He said the police had also not been able to trace the accused person's passport because drug barons took them with the fear that their couriers could leak information or abscond. The case of the prosecution is that on November 24, 2005, a team of detectives from the Headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), acting upon a tip-off that there was cocaine in house Number 348 at Mempeasem, in Accra, went to the house where they met Moises.

Moises was arrested and he led the Police to his upper room where three bottles of ammonium used to turn cocaine into crack, a machine used in compressing the cocaine, 13 pieces of gloves and a quantity of plastic wrappers were found.

The Prosecution said brown cellulose tapes, a filtering bottle used in filtering and sniffing cocaine, an exercise book used in recording the names of people who had purchased and been supplied with the drugs and two cell phones were also found. The court ordered its Registrar to write to the Ghana Institute of Languages to provide an additional interpreter for the Venezuelans. 2 May 07