Crack Dealers Jailed

Two globe-trotting drug dealers, caught with the world's largest haul of crack cocaine worth more than 1 million, were today jailed for 16 and 20 years respectively.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said the pair, along with a third conspirator who received five years, had been part of an efficient and massive "family-run" conspiracy to flood Britain with huge amounts of the highly addictive substance.

Referring to the "scourge of drugs" in Britain today, he said those responsible caused "untold fear and misery to many thousands of people, both users and their family".

Many "social evils" and crime were generated by the sale of such highly-addictive drugs as crack. Those before the court were part of an efficient operation which netted a 5.3 million profit over an 18-month period. Much of that money had since disappeared.

On the evidence, the group had manufactured "at least" 23 kilograms of crack, which the judge described as an "enormous quantity...an exceptional quantity".

Jailing the gang's distribution head, Andre N'Guessan, 34, for 20 years, the judge said he had clearly been a leading player in what was one of the "most serious cases of this type".

As far as he was concerned, the dealer who had assumed the name of an Ivory Coast magistrate and whose real identity was still a mystery, had made 1.5 million from his criminal activities.

According to N'Guessan, he was related to the main conspirator, Raymond Amankwah, who was still on the run, said the judge. But the evidence he had given about his assets had not only been "wholly implausible" but had "flown in the face" of the evidence.

However only 750,000 of his ill-gotten gains was realisable. The judge warned him that if that was not paid within 12 months under the court's powers to seize drug-dealing assets, another three years would be added to his sentence.

Keita, Amankwah's wife and a leading figure in the secretive set-up he ran, the judge said the least sentence he could pass on her was one of 16 years.

The 30-year-old mother-of-four, who had her last child in prison, had led a life-style of the "utmost extravagance" with the 1 million he felt she had made from the deadly trade. But only 500,000 of that was realisable. He told her that if that amount was not handed over to the authorities within 12 months she would have to serve an extra two years in jail.

Although he accepted she had not played such an important part in the conspiracy as N'Guesson, and may have been influenced to an extent by her husband, her role had clearly been very important.

As she sat with her head bowed in the dock, the judge told her he had not believed a word of her denials that she had made any money from the drug dealing. She had not been a "mere conduit" for the large sums involved. She had also lied about her true name, which like N'Guesson's remained unknown.

Finally the judge dealt with Charles Oppon. He told the 36-year-old father of one that he had been in a "completely different league" to the others and had rightly been described as N'Guesson's "dog's body". Consequently he would serve five years in jail, with an additional three months if 3,000 he ruled should be confiscated was not paid to the authorities within the next 12 weeks.

The judge told all three that he would be making recommendations that the Home Secretary should consider their deportations to Ghana, or whatever African country it could eventually be proved they came from, upon their release.

If police had not managed to smash the operation when they did, in June last year, Amankwah -- regarded as the "world's most prolific" crack dealer -- would probably have realised his dreams of moving from crack to candy and going legitimate as a prosperous businessman.

By the time officers swooped he had used a large slice of his profits to buy an ice-cream factory, a cannery and sweet-making machinery for an industrial estate he hoped to set up in Ghana. Police have no doubt that Amankwah is a "Mr Big" on the international drug scene who clearly enjoyed a champagne-swilling highlife with his wife.

The jury was told the couple and N'Gesson made frequent trips to West End branches of Thomas Cook travel agents to send huge sums out of the country in a money laundering exercise that involved at least 4 million and accounts in America, France, Denmark and Ghana.

Thomas Cook staff quickly became suspicious of the trio they soon began to call the "money bag people". They informed the police but the transactions were allowed to continue under surveillance. The court heard the drugs trail probably started in Bangkok with heroin being smuggled out of Thailand to New York. There is was swapped for cocaine, which was then brought into Britain -- often by Keita -- where she converted it into crack with a process involving microwave ovens.

She, her husband and N'Guesson flew everywhere either by Concorde or first class on other aircraft. Between them they visited Mali, Bangkok, the Ivory Coast, Denmark, Switzerland, France, America and Italy, with many of the visits believed to be drug connected. Keita and Amankwah also shopped in top stores with platinum credit cards and stayed in the best suites of the poshest hotels. In New York, home was a 450,000 apartment in Roosevelt Island's millionaires row.

Police spent a year tracking the activities of all four. Then, last summer they realised a major crack consignment was being prepared. They moved in, arresting Oppon, of Plummer Road in Streatham, south west London, as he was driving, and N'Guesson at his flat at his up-market flat in Bryanston Square, Mayfair, central London.

Keita, then eight and a half months pregnant was caught red-handed in her luxury Park Lane apartment with 5kgs of 90% plus purity crack, worth 1.1 million on the street. Some had been manufactured so recently it was still drying. Det Insp Gordon Harrison of the south east regional crime squad said that according to international police records it was the largest seizure of its kind in the world.

However, police also recovered vital documents showing a further 18.2kgs of crack had passed through the gang's hands. The amounts alarmed police, who until then had had no idea just how big the operation was. But officers connected with the investigation are convinced their efforts dealt a major blow to trafficking. During his sentencing, the judge, who praised officers involved in the case, said police had been "greatly assisted" by surveillance cameras. "It would seem the presence of these cameras and their use in court are becoming increasingly helpful," he added. All three were convicted of conspiracy to supply.