Four Ghanaians have been sentenced to a combined 26 years in prison for smuggling £4.3 million worth of cannabis from Ghana to south Essex, UK.
The cannabis was hidden in sacks of Gari powder and was discovered by border force officers at Tilbury Docks in December 2019.
The Convicted Individuals:
Daniel Yeboah: 5-year jail term, Edward Adjei: 4-year jail term, Kristoffen Baidoo: 10-year jail term (absent from trial), Kwaku Bonsu: 7-year jail term (fled jurisdiction before sentencing).
According to Saju Sasikumar, senior investigating officer at the National Crime Agency, “These men used their international contacts to import a huge amount of cannabis into the country.
Its onward supply in the UK would have had a catastrophic impact on our communities, fuelling violence and exploitation through county lines drug dealing”.
The investigation revealed that the container arrived at Tilbury Docks from Ghana on December 19, 2019, and was held before continuing its journey to London.
Intelligence from the National Crime Agency and the Ghanaian Narcotics Control Commission suggested the presence of drugs in the container.
Key Evidence:
2,335 packages of herbal cannabis weighing 1.5 tonnes were hidden inside white hessian sacks of Gari powder.
Text messages and emails on Baidoo’s mobile phone revealed his plot to take delivery of the drugs.
A bank account linked to Bonsu made multiple payments to a shipping company for the container’s delivery Efforts are ongoing to locate Baidoo and Bonsu and return them to custody to serve their sentences.