Ghana: Two 16-year-old british nationals caught drug smuggling in Ghana

 

On the 2 July 2007 at Kokoto Airport, Accra, Ghana an African British teenager, Yetunde Diya and her Turkish-Cypriot British friend were stopped from boarding a plane returning to the UK. They were then searched after officers from the Ghanaian narcotics control board deemed them to be behaving suspiciously.

Yetunde and Yasemin Vatansever, both 16, were found to be carrying a total of 6kg of cocaine stashed in the laptop bags they were carrying. They were subsequently arrested and charged with attempting to export a controlled substance without a licence.

It was believed that the teenagers from Islington, North London were lured by the all expenses paid trip to Ghana by drug traffickers with the promise of £3000 each on their return to London. They had told their parents that they were going on a trip to France with their school.

At the time of the arrest, the girls denied all knowledge of the drugs found on them with Vatansever, the only one of the pair to have spoken to the press, telling Channel 4 news “There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags, and told us [that] it was an empty bag. We never thought anything bad was inside . . . and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy . . . at the airport. It was basically a set-up. They didn’t tell us nothing. We are innocent. We don’t know nothing about this drugs and stuff.”

On 21 November 2007 Yetunde and Yasemin were found guilty of attempted drug trafficking and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority and face up 10 years in a youth detention facility in Ghana. They both maintain they are innocent and their lawyers plan to appeal arguing that the girls were "…ruthlessly exploited by the man who lured them to Ghana and led them to this terrible fate".

This case exposed Africa’s continued vulnerability to exploitation by outsiders with West Africa’s growing reputation as a major transit point for South American drug barons shipping their cocaine to Europe. It also highlighted the dangers African teenagers face in their pursuit of quick, easy cash to attain the materialistic and nihilistic lifestyle promoted by the ‘urban’ industry that is encroaching on the young African identity.

The sentencing, already twice delayed, will now take place on 23 January 2008 while the Ghanaian authorities review files from the social services.