Liberia: Police Intelligence Chief, Three Others Under Interrogation Over Record Cocaine Seizure
MONROVIA — Liberia’s police intelligence chief, two other ranking officers and an operative of the National Security Agency have been detained and are being interrogated over the country’s largest ever cocaine seizure after suspects arrested in the case named them to investigators, The Liberian Investigator has learned, as the NSA is now seeking to take the investigation out of police hands.
Sources within the Liberia National Police identified the three officers as Olufemi Briggs, chief of intelligence; Waddell Kwabo, chief of highway patrol; and Anthony Blade, who heads major crimes. Investigators are examining whether the three helped move the narcotics, the sources said. A fourth man, NSA operative Jamal Robert, is also under interrogation.
None of the four has been charged. Being named by co-arrestees is an accusation, not a finding, and all four remain presumed innocent.
The detentions have not been announced publicly. But the direction of the investigation became visible on Thursday, when Police Inspector General Col. Gregory O. Coleman told journalists he had disrobed the deputy commissioner for crime services after the officer allegedly admitted taking money connected to the case.
Col. Johnny Dean, who heads the division known within the force as Unit 106, was relieved of his post with immediate effect, interdicted, and turned over to the Professional Standards Division, Coleman said. According to the police chief, Dean was not linked to the trafficking of the cocaine itself but had allegedly compromised the investigation by attempting to provide assistance or comfort to people already in police custody.
“He has admitted to receiving US$10,000, and as such, Johnny Dean is relieved of his post with immediate effect,” Coleman said.
Dean, who commanded the Anti-Robbery Unit, was dismissed from the police in 2015 by then-Police Director Chris Massaquoi after an internal investigation linked him to the LBDI robbery at the time. He and other officers were accused of supplying weapons and police uniforms to the armed robbers.
Coleman said an internal inquiry would be followed by a criminal investigation. “If he’s found guilty, if he’s found culpable and charged, he will be taken to court as well,” he said. The deputy commissioner for intelligence and criminal investigation has been instructed to assume Dean’s responsibilities on an interim basis.
Dean’s removal is the first official acknowledgment that the cocaine investigation has reached inside the Liberia National Police. What The Liberian Investigator has established is that it has reached considerably further than one deputy commissioner and considerably higher than US$10,000.
The Money Trail
According to sources familiar with the interrogations, Robert, the NSA operative, has admitted receiving US$300,000 from the suspects in connection with the cocaine consignment, paid to assist in transporting and protecting the drugs.
Robert told investigators he handed the money to a Fula money exchanger operating a bureau on Randall Street in Monrovia for safekeeping, the sources said.
On Thursday afternoon, security officers raided Albarka Bureau and Money Remittance Inc. on Randall Street. The money was confiscated from the exchanger, according to sources familiar with the operation, who said the raid was led by the National Security Agency rather than the police. Authorities have not publicly commented on the raid or said how much was recovered. The money exchanger, however, was taken into custody.
Robert was also named by one of the suspects arrested in the case, the sources said.
Investigators have additionally examined call records. Anthony Blade’s telephone number appeared on Robert’s call log during the same period in which Robert exchanged multiple calls with one of the suspects, according to sources with knowledge of the material.
The Liberian Investigator has not independently reviewed the call records, the interrogation records or any document confirming the confiscation, and could not verify the amounts described.
The Liberia National Police and the National Security Agency did not respond to questions about whether the four are in custody, what they are suspected of, or whether any have been formally accused.
Two Sets Of Numbers
A separate dispute has arisen between the two agencies over how much cash was recovered at the scene of the seizure.
Sources with knowledge of the operation told The Liberian Investigator that roughly US$150,000 in cash was found in the room occupied by one of the principal suspects, and that Coleman was in the room with NSA agents when it was discovered. The figure accounted for afterward on the police side was US$17,000, the sources said.
The sources said the discrepancy has become a point of friction between the police and the NSA, and that National Security Advisor Samuel Kofi Woods II has been briefed and a quiet review is underway.
The Liberian Investigator has not seen an evidence inventory, a receipt, a custody log or any other record of what was recovered at the scene, and cannot independently confirm either figure. No authority has officially accused Coleman or any other officer of misappropriating money seized at Duazon, and no finding of wrongdoing has been made against him.
Video recorded at the scene and circulated afterward shows narcotics, a firearm and a swimsuit among the items recovered, but not the money.
Whose Operation Was It
Sources familiar with the planning said the Duazon raid was run by the National Security Agency and that the Liberia National Police were deliberately excluded from the operation, brought to the scene only after the narcotics had been secured and the suspects subdued. The subsequent raid on the Randall Street bureau was also NSA-led, the same sources said.
Investigation Moves To The NSA
The extent of the alleged police involvement has prompted the National Security Agency to seek relocation of the investigation to its own headquarters, sources said, though the inquiry remains under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice.
The move amounts to a judgment by one arm of the state that another cannot be trusted to investigate itself. It comes as the officer responsible for police intelligence, the unit whose function is to detect precisely this kind of network, sits among those being questioned.
Coleman, in his Thursday briefing, issued one of his strongest warnings yet against corruption inside the force.
“Nobody will hide behind your offices here and try to do anything unethical or that will bring this government into corporate disrepute,” he said.
Describing the LNP as “the people’s police,” Coleman said investigators would follow the case wherever it led. “We stand ready and prepared to follow this investigation wherever the evidence leads,” he said, adding that “anyone connected will be subsequently arrested and prosecuted in accordance with the rule of law.”
What Was Seized
Coleman also detailed the valuation of the narcotics recovered at Duazon, Margibi County, on July 21. Investigators recovered 3,971 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of about US$317.68 million, he said, a wholesale figure calculated using a median estimate of US$80,000 per kilogram.
“The final street value can go even higher, almost US$400 million, depending on how the drugs are distributed and diluted,” Coleman said, adding that authorities had deliberately used a conservative valuation to avoid exaggerating the worth of the narcotics.
The seizure is the largest in Liberian history, more than seven times the 520 kilograms taken at Monrovia’s seaport in 2022 and nearly 17 times the 237.6 kilograms intercepted at Roberts International Airport on June 8.
Six Years, And No Liberian Named
In a statement to the nation on July 22, Justice Minister and Attorney General N. Oswald Tweh Sr. said the network behind the Duazon seizure “may have been operating in Liberia for a considerate period, more than six years,” and described it as “organized, sophisticated, complex and well-funded.”
He disclosed that several persons of interest had been detained on July 20 but did not say whether any were Liberian, and named only two foreign nationals in custody, a Serbian and a dual Colombian and Spanish national, whose identities he withheld.
Sources had earlier named the foreign suspects to The Liberian Investigator as Johann David Garces Grajales, who holds both Colombian and Spanish passports, and Srdan Seles, a Serbian national. It was, however, not clear whether those names, as shown on their passports, were their real names.
The Justice Minister pledged that “no individual, regardless of status, influence, or affiliation, will be shielded from accountability where the evidence establishes criminal responsibility.”
Liberia’s previous benchmark drug case collapsed in court. Four defendants tried at Criminal Court ‘C’ over the 2022 seizure were acquitted after a jury found prosecutors had not proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt, an outcome that has shaped public expectations of what follows a major seizure here.
The Liberian Investigator will continue to report this story.
