Nine public officials from five government agencies are in police custody after a joint intelligence operation at Tema Port uncovered nearly 147 million tablets of high-dosage Tramadol hidden inside a container declared as household appliances, the latest in a series of enforcement actions that have put the country’s main seaport under unprecedented institutional scrutiny in less than a month.
Those placed on police inquiry bail include five officers from the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), one officer from the Narcotics Control Commission (NCC), one Port Security officer, one Energy Commission officer, and one officer from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA). The breadth of agencies implicated points to a coordinated scheme involving multiple clearance checkpoints, officials said.
The seized consignment, container number TGHU6228715 cleared under Bill of Entry 40226151187, consisted of 299 cartons containing 146,932,000 tablets of Tramadol Hydrochloride in 250mg and 225mg doses, with a combined weight of 34,847.2 kilograms. The shipment originated from the United Arab Emirates and was declared as water kettles, kitchen blenders, pressing irons, energy-saving bulbs, and polypropylene materials.
The container was detained on February 26, 2026, following intelligence received by the Preventive Unit of the Customs Division, and transferred to a controlled area in Tema. A joint re-examination conducted on March 1, 2026, by Customs officers and the Central Revenue Monitoring Team revealed the concealed pharmaceuticals hidden among some of the declared goods. The importer and declarant have both been handed over to the Ghana Police Service.
The dosage strengths are significant from a public health standpoint. Ghana’s legal threshold for Tramadol is capped at 100mg, making both the 225mg and 250mg tablets in this consignment illegal for sale or distribution in the country under the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) regulations. High-dosage Tramadol has been linked to addiction, overdose deaths, and violent behaviour, particularly among youth in northern Ghana, where the drug has historically flowed from the same UAE corridor.
The Tramadol bust is the third major enforcement action at Tema Port in under three weeks. On February 24, the GRA interdicted five customs officers over a GH¢85 million transit fraud case involving 18 articulated trucks whose declared duty value of GH¢2.62 million was a fraction of the actual tax liability investigators assessed against the cargo, which included cooking oil, tomato paste, and spaghetti.
The GRA stated it remains committed to safeguarding national security, protecting public health, and preserving the integrity of Ghana’s revenue and border management systems. No senior officer above mid-level rank has been publicly identified in the arrests.
