Drug Dealers Flew by Concorde

Senior members of the world's largest crack cocaine ring, who used a London Park Lane apartment as a base and flew on concorde posing as business executives were convicted last Thursday of planning to flood UK with the drug, writes the London Times.

Southwark Crown Court was told that the gang leaders kept apartments in Mayfair and New York and shopped with platinum credit cards.

When the police struck they found 5.5kg of crack cocaine worth over 1 million p/stlg at the luxury apartment in Park Lane, central London. The drug had been processed in microwave ovens and laid out in slabs to dry on an antique writing table in the master bedroom. It was the biggest recorded single crack cocaine find by any police force in the world.

Police believe a further 18.2kg of crack had passed through the hands of the gang, led by a group of Ghanaians. They had made at least 5 million p/stlg and laundered large sums of cash through London's West End branches of Thomas Cook so often that they were nicknamed "the money bag people". Although suspicious because of the huge sums, Thomas Cook staff allowed the transactions to continue after police told them of their investigations.

The police believe that all of the members of the gang were using false identities and they are trying to find their real names.

Mariame Keita, 30, the number two in the ring (whose blown colour out pictured is given by the newspaper with her relaxing in her missing husband's 500,000 p/stlg apartment), who was 8 months pregnant and had the crack haul in her Park Lane home; Andre N'Guessan, 34, the network's distributor of Bryantson Square, Mayfair; and Charles Oppon, 36, his lieutenant of Streatham, south London were remanded to await sentencing this month after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply drugs. They were warned by Judge Rivlin, QC, that they faced "substantial terms" of imprisonment.

Detectives are still searching for the ringleader, Mariame Keita's husband Chanda Keita. Detective Inspector Gordon Harrison said that an arrest warrant had been issued for the man described in court as "highly intelligent, charming and very obviously well heeled".

Mr Harrison said: "There is no doubt he is a Mr Big in the international drugs world and is believed to be the most prolific crack dealer to have come to the attention of police anywhere in the world".

Police believe that if they had not smashed the 18-month drug operation, Chanda Keita would probably have realised his dreams of going legitimate. He had already bought an ice cream factory, a cannery and sweet-making machinery for an industrial estate he hoped to set up in his native Ghana.

Mr Harrison said the Keitas and N'Guessan flew everywhere either by concorde or first class. Between January 1993 and June 1994, the Keitas visited Mali, Bangkok, the Ivory Coast, Denmark, Switzerland, France, America and Italy.

They cultivated "an executive school of body language", Mr Harrison said. "They really worked on their image, deliberately flying in the best seats with expensive luggage and using executive lounges at airports simply to cultivate an aura of respectability".

Mr Harrison said of the Park Lane haul:" Not only was this the largest ever single seizure of the drug in Britain, but according to the Drug Enforcement Agency in America they have no record of a larger haul anywhere else in the world".