Five charged in Liberia after more than 200kg of cocaine seized in drug bust | Liberia
Authorities in Liberia have charged five suspects in connection with one of the largest drug seizures in the country’s history after police found more than 200kg of cocaine, mistakenly reported to be Maggi spice cubes.
Shipment with an estimated value of $19 million (£14.2 million) was discovered at the international airport in Monrovia on June 8, but the names of the suspects were not revealed until a press conference at the weekend.
“This was a serious transnational cocaine smuggling operation that used Liberia’s aviation and logistics system as a conduit for organized crime,” Insp Gen Gregory Coleman said in a statement late on Saturday. He added that his team found evidence linking the shipment to a similar shipment processed in May.
News of the drug bust caused turmoil in Liberia, prompting President Joseph Boakai to order a joint investigation by the police and the national anti-drug agency. “Liberia will not be used as a safe haven, transit point, warehouse, financial center or base of operations by criminal networks engaged in drug trafficking,” he said at the time.
But the delay in naming the suspects caused controversy in parliament, where Coleman was summoned to a special senate hearing, and fueled public speculation that the investigation had been falsified to protect powerful Liberian citizens.
On Saturday, Coleman announced that his team had found evidence pointing to complicity by the logistics company that handled the shipment. He then named suspects charged with transportation, possession and illegal trafficking of controlled substances and criminal conspiracy.
The prime suspect, the firm’s operations manager, is currently detained in Monrovia. Coleman said arrest warrants would be issued in cooperation with Interpol for the remaining people at large. Another suspect, who was believed to have attended an event in China at the time of the raid, did not return to the country. Prosecutors also released the Dutch telephone number and home address of a suspect living in the United Kingdom, along with his Birmingham postcode.
The raid reinforced reports that West Africa, a region with porous land and sea borders, has become a major transit point for the movement of narcotics between South America and Europe.
In October 2022, authorities seized a shipping container containing 520kg of cocaine worth $100m (£74.86m) at the port of Monrovia. It was reported on Saturday that one of the suspects named had been released from prison after being arrested in connection with another drug-related incident in 2024.
An investigation by the Guardian in February 2025 showed that one of Europe’s most wanted drug dealers had been in neighboring Sierra Leone, taking refuge in the country’s capital, Freetown, since at least 2022 and was in a serious relationship with the president’s daughter.
In May, Spanish police, working with US and Dutch authorities, seized 45 tonnes of cocaine worth €812m (£694m) in what a Madrid court described as Europe’s “largest ever cocaine bust”.. The Comoros-flagged cargo ship, which was raided near the Canary Islands, left Freetown with its official destination being Libya, officials said. Another shipment of drugs from Freetown was seized in February en route to Spain.
