Top Kenyan Model Busted With "Ghana Cocaine"

... She has given names
Nairobi, Kenya Apr 25, 2006 -- Police at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport have seized cocaine valued at Sh31 million (about $500,000) from a top Kenyan model on arrival from Ghana.

The 31-year-old, who was among Kenya's contestants for the coveted M-Net Face of Africa 1999 and Miss Universe Kenya 2002, was arrested at 6am on Saturday at after she arrived from Ghana on a Kenya Airways flight.

The cocaine, weighing 4.4 kilogrammes, was hidden in the false bottom of her suitcase.

The model's name was on a police list of most wanted drug traffickers, said anti-narcotics head Bernard Nyakwaka.

Police said the woman was in their list of those wanted in connection with drug trafficking. The suspect has already been charged with drug trafficking.

Meanwhile, two former Kenyan Cabinet ministers are to be questioned by police after their telephone numbers were found in the cellphone of the suspect.
The names of the two former ministers, now sitting MPs, a former Nairobi mayor and several businessmen were found by airport police as they scrolled through her cellphone searching for clues to members of her drugs cartel.
The telephone numbers had been saved under the real names of the MPs and others.
When questioned, the model told police that she was a friend of the MPs and that they often hired her to organise functions like harambees and parties.
But none of the MPs or the other prominent people was linked to drugs, she said.
A formal decision on whether the MPs and the others would be interrogated lay with police commissioner Mohamed Hussein Ali and CID chief Joseph Kamau, police said.
The anti-narcotics head Mr Nyakwaka confirmed they had seized the woman's phone, but refused to confirm it contained the numbers of the MPs.
"Personal details saved in the telephones of drug suspects are retrieved and stored with a lot of secrecy since they are part of the investigations," he said.
He went on: "Her name has featured prominently in a drug trafficking cartel involving West African nationals. Most of them are from Nigeria."
Mr Nyakwaka continued: "We have been looking for her for some time and we had her personal details fed into computers in all the country's airports. Officials at JKIA's passport control section alerted our officers when details from her scanned passport fitted those in our database."
The officer confirmed the woman was seized on arrival at the airport from Accra.
The cocaine was sealed with carbon paper to ensure the drugs were not detected by X-ray screening.
"She has travelled a lot in Africa, Europe and the US. Her first passport filled up and she is on her second," Mr Nyakwaka said.
The new passport was issued in January and showed she travelled to the UK the same month and again in February.
Mr Nyakwaka went on: "She has a one-year valid visa to Britain in her second passport. We believe she easily gets visas from foreign embassies due to her modelling career."
He said the woman had given them names of other traffickers whom she worked with in the same syndicate.
"We are looking for them," he said.
The woman was expected in court today.