Cops raid ‘Ganja’ farm

A suspected drug baron, Alex Kufuor Frimpong, has been declared wanted by the Police, after a raid on his four-acre Indian hemp 'wee or ganja, farm in the Tain District of the Brong Ahafo Region over the weekend.

Two of his farm assistants were busted in the raid, which was carried out by a team of 105 policemen, led by the Brong Ahafo Regional Police Commander, DCOP Kwaku Ayesu Opare-Addo. The team stormed the farm, after a tip off at Ahiamankyeni, a village near Nsawkaw.

Briefing newsmen, DCOP Mr. Opare-Addo told journalists that the Police had set the camp of the 'wee' producer ablaze, after searching the entire cottage, comprising of four hamlets.

At the time of filing this story, The Chronicle said the Police were busily looking for the suspect, Kuffour Frimpong, who was believed to be hiding in Accra or Kumasi.

Mr. Opare-Addo, who described the 'wee' farm of Kuffour Frimpong as professional farming, narrated that the farm had all it takes to make farming sophisticated and a modem way of producing 'wee' on a large scale.

According to Mr. Opare-Addo, the Police had uncovered a whole lot of equipment used for growing, fermenting, drying and packaging of the marijuana, possibly for export.

Some of the equipment collected at the farm and the camp, according to the B/A Police Chief, included irrigation equipment such as water hose, poly tanks, sprinkling machines numbering about four and power-generating plants used to tap water from the Tain River.

Other items seized were compressor machines used to compress marijuana for packaging into poly bags, and a pump action gun, which was retrieved from a watchman at the farm.

The police commander disclosed that what made the suspected drug baron a professional marijuana cultivator was a book authored by Mel Frank, titled "Marijuana Growers Guide," which he used as a guide in cultivating his ganja.

Mr. Opare Addo disclosed that when one of the rooms at the camp was searched, they saw a padlock that was used to lock an entrance to a vault placed underground and when it was forcibly opened, packages of marijuana were found concealed in poly bags, wrapped with a solution tape that made it difficult for any person to suspect the package as a dangerous drug, like wee.

The Police had also ransacked the premises of Kuffour Frimpong at Wenchi, where certain equipment, linking him to the marijuana production were found.

The Police named those arrested as Iddrisu Umar, 25, a close associate of the wanted drug baron and Samuel Annor Kwame, 21, who was on duty as a watchman at the time the Police arrived there.

The B/A Commander told journalists that his outfit, acting upon a tip off, went to a village, Ahiamankyine near Nsawkaw and traveled more than 20 kilometres before reaching the farm.

According to the Police Commander, the suspect was tapping water from river Tain to water his farm, which made it possible for him to conduct all-year-round farm¬ing of 'wee.'