Court orders confiscation of Nayele Ametefe's properties

The mother of Nayele Ametefe has initiated moves to prevent the state from confiscating one of the jailed drug baron's properties at East Legon in Accra.

According to her, the said property belonged to her and not her daughter [Nayele].

An Accra High Court last Wednesday ordered the confiscation of properties of Nayele Ametefe also known Ruby Adu-Gyamfi.

She is currently serving an eight years, eight months jail sentence in the United Kingdom.

The assets the Accra High Court asked the state to confiscate include the Night Angels Enterprise on the Dzorwulu Motorway Extension in Accra. Six different bank accounts of the convict with the Fidelity Bank and the East Legon house.

The Ghanaian Times newspaper in its Monday April 11, 2016 edition reported that, the court, presided over by Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa asked Nayele's mother to appear before the court on April 27 to defend her position with the relevant documents.

According to the newspaper, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), in charge of Enforcement and Control, Mr. Richard Nii Lante Blankson, said his outfit was taking steps to serve Nayele with the court ruling.

Mr Blankson however noted that some people were claiming ownership of some of the buildings at Pease, Kuntunase in the Ashanti Region, East Legon and Dzorwulu.

He said lawyers of the said people have presented some documents indicating that they owned the buildings, which, they said, were rented by the convict.

According to Mr Blankson, the court also ordered that Fidelity Bank release the amounts in the bank accounts, with the accrued interest to NACOB so that it could enforce the court's orders as to the utilisation of the monies.

Nayele,was arrested on November 10, 2014 at the Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom by officers of the UK Border Force with 12.5 kg of cocaine worth $5million in her hand luggage.

The 33-year-old who pleaded guilty to carrying 12 kilos of cocaine to the United Kingdom was sentenced on her own plea by the Isleworth Crown Court in London in January 2015. The sentence was discounted because of her early guilty plea.

Prosecutors said the cocaine carried by Nayele had a purity of 78% and a street value of 1.872 million Pounds. The prosecutors told the court Nayele had $23,000 and an additional 6,000 Pounds in her handbag when she was arrested.

The money was payment for her courier services.