Credible information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that Alhaji Mohammed Alamid Daud, the man who was declared wanted by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in connection with the 12.5kg cocaine bust at Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom, has finally been arrested.
He was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) Sunday evening upon his arrival from Nigeria.
Communications Minister Dr Edward Omane-Boamah confirmed the arrest of Alhaji Daud, said to be the Business Development Manager of KELM Engineering Limited located at Kanda in Accra, when DAILY GUIDE contacted him (Minister) last night.
The BNI last week declared him wanted after attempts to locate him had proved futile. He had been linked with the Ruby Adu-Gyamfi cocaine scandal.
Alhaji Daud is believed to have used his connections at the Kotoka International Airport to facilitate the easy passage of the drug courier, Nayele Ametefeh aka Ruby Adu-Gyamfi, who was arrested in London. Two of her friends?Nana Akua Amponsah and Sadalia Nuhu?flew back to Ghana the same day Ruby was busted but were arrested by the BNI later. The three ladies were said to have used the VVIP wing of the Kotoka Airport during the recent abortive drug export to the UK.
Other senior state officials who allegedly facilitated the use of the VVIP lounge had earlier been nabbed.
Indications are that Daud travelled together with the ladies in the British Airways flight to the UK but immediately made a detour to Lagos, Nigeria, when alarm blew and Ruby was arrested at the Heathrow Airport.
A source said Daud was arrested together with another immigration officer who tried to facilitate his smooth exit from the KIA upon his arrival into the country around 8:30pm aboard an Aero Contractors flight from Lagos.
The two are said to be in the custody of the BNI which is investigating the circumstance under which either the VVIP or the VIP section of the airport, reserved for the President, ministers of state and other very important personalities, was allowed to be used to facilitate narcotics trade.
Alhaji Daud is said to be the one who called on telephone Abiel Ashitey Armah, a Deputy Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who doubles as the officer in-charge of the VVIP and the VIP wings of the KIA, to allow the ladies to use the VIP lounge and also help them on the tarmac to board the airline to London.
Daud, a resident of Community 20, Lashibi, near Tema, purportedly went into hiding after the arrest of the other 12 suspects at the KIA in connection with the cocaine saga.
Sometime last week, BNI investigators took five of the arrested suspects in connection with the case to the Kotoka International Airport to walk them through the process they were taken through before embarking on the journey which landed them in trouble. They included Nana Akua Amponsah and Sadalia Nuhu.
The others were Abiel Ashitey Armah; Theophilus Kissi, a Foreign Affairs protocol officer and Ahmed Abubakar, a ?connection man? at the airport, otherwise known as ?goro boy?.
The 12 persons mentioned above are Paa Kwasi Acquah, said to be the boyfriend of Sadalia who recently relocated to Ghana from the United States; Mustapha Kilba, a cousin of Akua Amponsah; Faisal Khadar; Abdulla Mustrah; Charbel Nasr; Mariotto Bernard Young and Mouiw Jaafar.
The rest are Theophilus Kissi, attached to the VVIP lounge and Ahmed Abubakar, who had earlier been presented as a civil servant, but it has now emerged that he is a ?connection man? at the airport.
Ruby last week pleaded guilty to the offence of drug trafficking to the United Kingdom in a video trial at Isleworth Crown Court.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
