Extradited Ghanaian drug kingpin sentenced

...for smuggling heroin into the US

New York – Federal and New York law enforcement authorities Tuesday announced that Attah Evan Kwasi, a large-scale heroin trafficker extradited from Ghana to the United States -- was sentenced 262 months in federal prison for his role in a conspiracy to import kilogram quantities of heroin from Ghana to the United States.

Kwasi had previously pleaded guilty to the charges on September 13, 2006.

According to the charges in Manhattan federal court, Kwasi operated an international heroin-trafficking organization based in Accra.

He recruited couriers who swallowed pellets containing heroin and traveled from Ghana to the United States on commercial airliners. After arriving in the United States, the heroin couriers transported the heroin to the New York City area.

KWASI’s sentencing marks the culmination of a three year investigation and prosecution of importers, couriers and distributors responsible for trafficking in multiple kilograms of heroin in the New York City area. KWASI, who was indicted in 2004 by a Grand Jury in the Southern District of New York, was charged alongside heroin couriers who worked for the organization, a local heroin distributor, and NANA SARPRONG, another importer from Ghana who directed his own network of couriers and distributors. SARPONG was sentenced earlier this year to 292 months’ imprisonment.

In December 2004, KWASI was arrested in Ghana for extradition purposes, pursuant to a request by the United States to the Government of Ghana. After litigation in the Ghanaian courts, a Ghanaian judge granted the United States’ request that KWASI be extradited to face the charges in the Indictment. The extradition process was completed in August 2005, when KWASI was flown from Ghana to the Southern District of New York. At the time of his extradition, law enforcement authorities in Ghana and the United States seized kilogram quantities of heroin from KWASI and his organization, which derived approximately $10 million from their heroin trafficking crimes. At KWASI’s sentencing, Judge SWAIN ordered KWASI to forfeit $10 million to the United States.