From Awareness Times Newspaper in Freetown

Breaking News
Cocaine Plane Impersonated the Red Cross:We have Lots of Exclusive Scoops
Inside this Edition including the hitherto unknown Cocaine Speedboat...!
By
Jul 15, 2008, 11:08

*

48 hours on, mystery still surrounds the sudden appearance of an
unidentified airplane at the tarmac of the Lungi International Airport. In
the ensuing is a comprehensive report as filed in by our Internet
correspondents and our local reporters.

   The Plane with the fake Red Cross symbol on its wing and a fake
registration number of SQ2261 painted on its side
*

At about 3:30 a.m. of Sunday 13th July 2008 a small jet plane with a fake
Red Cross Sign is said to have forced its way onto the tarmac of the Lungi
International Airport allegedly without the permission of the Control Tower.
The plane was later identified as a Venezuelan registered aircraft.
*

RED CROSS DISOWNS PLANE
*

In an exclusive interview with the ICRC's Communications Head, Abu Bakarr
Kamara, he told this press that the ICRC is downrightly dismayed over the
incident at Lungi and would want the general public and the world to know
that the plane in question is not owed by the ICRC nor by the Sierra Leone
Red Cross Society (SLRCS).
*

APC MINISTER IMPLICATED
*

Meanwhile, in a disturbing twist, the names of both Transport & Aviation
Minister Hon. Kemoh Sesay and his younger brother Ahmed Sesay (who is the
Team Manager of the National Football Team, Leone Stars) are being floated
as having some knowledge of the drugs dealing. Unconfirmed information as we
went to press is that Ahmed Sesay is being detained for questioning at the
Police's CID.
*

FORCED LANDING?
*

According to police sources, the plane allegedly landed far away from the
main terminal building in an area known as Runway 3.0 at Kasongna Gate.
Immediately the plane landed, the crew members allegedly disembarked and
boarded a waiting black jeep which then forced its way out of the Airport by
breaking a sealed gate in the airport perimeter and driving through it.

Security personnel were then alerted who later forced the plane open and
found 703.5kg of Cocaine inside. When the police mounted a cordon search of
the airport perimeter area, they discovered five AK47 rifles in the
possession of an ex combatant named Ibrahim Kargbo.
*

100 MILLION DOLLARS
*

According to the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, a single gram of
pure cocaine was selling for around $140 last September 2007. Thus, the
street value of the 703kg of Cocaine that landed at Lungi Airport last
Sunday is almost $100,000,000 (One Hundred Million Dollars). This is a clear
indication that the operation is not a small one but one in which very
senior members of the Government and Security Agencies might be giving their
blessings to.

"There is no way an international drug dealer is going to risk a cache worth
100 million dollars landing into a country where he does not have some
serious high level connections and protection," a retired Police
Commissioner told Awareness Times. *DISAPPEARANCE OF ONE BOX
*

Strengthening these allegations is the fact that after the boxes had been
offloaded from the plane, one of the boxes of cocaine simply disappeared
from right under the noses of the security personnel.
*

VENEZUELA TO SALONE
*

Just a fortnight ago, Investigative Journalist David Blair in Caracas,
published in the Telegraph Newspaper in London that a crucial change in the
global pattern of narcotics smuggling is now underway.

According to Blair, in the past, most narcotics from Columbia were smuggled
directly to Europe but today the cocaine is more likely to be loaded onto
long-range aircraft and flown across the Atlantic to small West African
countries. Blair particularly cited Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and Sierra Leone,
as key transit points where the cocaine is offloaded before being shipped
into Europe.

Venezuela's President Chavez is accused of fully backing these operations.
In 1998 - the last year before Mr. Chavez came to office - Venezuela's
security forces made 11,581 drug-related arrests. By 2005, this had
plummeted to only 1,082. It is also reported that last June 2007, four
smugglers were arrested at the main airport on Venezuela's Margarita Island
while loading 2.2 tons of cocaine onto an aircraft bound for Sierra Leone.
They did not expect to be caught because senior security operatives had
escorted them into the airport in Venezuela.
*

UMARU SITTA TURAY
*

It will be recalled that local journalist Umaru Sitta Turay had last year
June 2007 strongly protested at a Police Briefing that he had been an eye
witness to a mystery helicopter that landed at the Choithram's Hospital's
Helicopter Pad from which it had offloaded strange items for well over two
hours. Sitta Turay had blasted the Police that despite him making numerous
calls for the police to investigate the mystery scene, not a single police
officer had turned up at the scene. According to Sitta Turay, Hon. Kemoh
Sesay and his younger brother, Ahmed Sesay had been present during the
offloading of this mystery helicopter at Hill Station last June 2007 but the
police turned a blind eye back then.
*

INVESTIGATION ORDERED
*

Meanwhile, President Koroma and his entourage landed at the Airport from an
official visit to the Gambia few hours after the incident. The President
upon arrival reportedly instructed that the investigation should be jointly
conducted by the local United Nations Mission and the Sierra Leone Police
(SLP).

The immediate investigation set up is being headed on the side of the SLP by
Assistant Inspector General Francis Munu under whose tireless leadership,
arrests were effected that same Sunday. Initially, three of the suspects
were arrested and the other three were apparently later intercepted in the
Port Loko area. According to police sources, the arrested Crew constituted
two Mexicans, one American, one Venezuelan, two Colombians and one Bissau
Guinean.

Sierra Leoneans presently helping the police in their investigations are
Chernor Bah, an air traffic controller; Santos Bangura, Acting LUC Lungi
Airport Police Station; O.C. Hazeley also of the Lungi Police Station;
Acting Managing Director Lungi International Airport, Mr. John Brima and
John Sesay, Acting Operations Manager.
*

'COCAINE SPEEDBOAT'
*

Special Investigations by Awareness Times has revealed that at around 1:30am
(two hours before the plane forcibly landed at the airport), a mystery
speedboat had crossed over from Freetown into Lungi environs. The speedboat
which contained six men (Four white men and two Nigerians) missed its
desired target which we have learnt was the Landing Pad at Lungi Mahera used
by the Diamond Hovercraft. Awareness Times interviewed a fisherman who
explained that his colleagues and himself were awoken by the sound of the
speedboat which had berthed a distance from the Hovercraft Pad. These
passengers explained they were lost and requested for assistance. Speaking
in Krio, the fisherman told Awareness Times that after they were each paid
ten thousand leones, they took the speedboat to land at the Hovercraft site.
He reveals that they met a brand new jeep parked at the site in the pitch
darkness and with two white males sitting waiting. One male was described as
"very hefty".

The fisherman's story was also corroborated by a driver of the Hovercraft
Bus which usually transports passengers from the landing pad to the airport.
The driver, Ibrahim Kamara, explained that his house was near the landing
pad and he heard the sound of the speedboat at around 1:30am. Ibrahim said
he was curious as the Hovercraft had finished operations for that day and so
he came out of his house and met local fishermen who had brought the
Nigerians and White men over in the lost speedboat.

Another eye witness to the scene is a local handyman named Brima Bah who
also confirmed to this newspaper's investigators that he was woken up by the
sound of the speedboat and came outside to see a brand new jeep with plastic
still covered on its seats, parked at the Hovercraft landing pad.

"I helped some of the strangers off the speedboat and they all got into the
jeep and drove off in the direction of the airport. It was not yet 2am but
it was past 1am," Bah explained to Awareness Times adding that he was given
Le10,000 for his assistance.
*

NIGERIAN WITH €11,000
*

Meanwhile, a Nigerian national known as Ofodilay Chicozee Chikeluba was
arrested by the police on suspicion of being part of the drug plane saga.
According to the police, the Nigerian was in possession of 11,000 Euros
suspected to be for use in the operation. However, whilst in police custody
(Chicozee), a Detective Police Constable, Musa Lansana who was in charge of
the suspect was seen in the company of the suspect in a restaurant in town.
Police have however re-arrested the suspect and Officer Lansana has also
been detained for further investigations.


(c) Copyright 2005, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

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