Two Afghans deported

Front Page: October 23, 2007
Story: Albert K. Salia
TWO Afghans were yesterday arrested at Osu in a joint undercover operation between the Ghana Police Service and the United States of America (USA) Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
The suspects, who arrived in the country yesterday as tourists, are allegedly in the country to collect money to import 100 kilogrammes of heroin, worth $1.7 million, from Afghanistan into Ghana.
The arrest of the suspects, Nasrullah Safiullah, alias Yama, and Mohammed Ashraf Mohammed-Omar, followed surveillance mounted on their activities, as well as their conversation recorded over a period of time.
The operation, which involved other US security and intelligence agencies, halted the transaction between the Afghans and their accomplices in their attempt to import 100 kilogrammes of heroin into Ghana.
Supported by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Mr P.K. Acheampong, the Interior Minister, Mr Kwamena Bartels, announced at a news conference shortly after the arrest of the suspects that they would be deported to the US to face similar drug charges.
According to Mr Bartels, the suspects had arranged for the heroin to be re-exported into the US.
“If this first consignment had been successful, more heroin and other illicit drugs would have been brought into the country by the gang and sent out to the United States,” he added.
Mr Bartels said the government considered the suspects as undesirable aliens, hence their immediate deportation to the US.
That, he said, “is in furtherance of an existing treaty between the United States and Ghana”.