{"id":32957,"date":"2023-03-10T15:59:51","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T15:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins"},"modified":"2023-03-10T16:23:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T16:23:08","slug":"liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins","title":{"rendered":"Liberia: US$100M Cocaine Case Finally Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Liberia. <\/strong><\/span>The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018C\u2019 on Thursday, March 9, with the acceptance of the machine translation system.<\/p>\n

Among the accused were Malam Conte, a Guinea-Bissau national who is fluent in Arabic and Makki Admeh Issam, a Portuguese, the key figure in the case.<\/p>\n

Larsana Keita was nominated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help translate in Arabic language and Tito Abanobi for the Portuguese.<\/p>\n

They were rejected by the defendants on grounds that the two translators were not fluent in Arabic and Portuguese, respectively, which led to the introduction of the machine translation.<\/p>\n

The machine translation was done yesterday by the parties, (the court, defense and prosecution). It was tried shortly after its acceptance to provide on-the-spot translations through headphones in English, Arabic and Portuguese.<\/p>\n

The trial was adjourned to Tuesday, March 14, to allow the court to deal with the issues surrounding the rejected translators.<\/p>\n

At the opening of the trial, the two translators Keita and Abanobi raised serious contention in the court on the Daily Observer Newspaper March 6 edition under the captioned \u201cDefendants in US$100 Million Cocaine Case Rejects Translators.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Judge Blamo Dixon apologized for the said publication, and went on, \u201cMr. Keita and Mr. Abanobi shall be contacted by the court to assist if the need arises.\u201d<\/p>\n

The case grew from the government’s seizure of US$100 million worth of cocaine in 2022, during which time, a Liberian named Oliver Zayzay and some of his foreign associates were arrested after seeking to purchase what appeared to be a shipping container full of fresh frozen pig feet from a refrigerated storage facility in Monrovia.<\/p>\n

The defendants had initially offered to pay the owners of the container, AJA Group Holdings, the sum of US$200,000 for the entire container which, at the time, cost less than US$30,000.<\/p>\n

But when the defendants, within less than eight hours, doubled their offer to US$400,000 and, finally, to US$1 million, AJA Group said they were certain that Zayzay and his associates were dealing with a serious case of narcotics trafficking.<\/p>\n

larThe company said they contacted the United States Ambassador, a move that brought both the American and Liberian anti-narcotics law enforcement agents into the picture and caught the suspects red-handed.<\/p>\n

The US$100 million cocaine bust is believed to be the biggest arrest in terms of street value on the African continent so far.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Liberia<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Liberia. The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018C\u2019 on Thursday, March 9, with the acceptance of the machine translation system. Among the accused were Malam Conte, a Guinea-Bissau national who is fluent in Arabic and Makki Admeh Issam, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":32955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-32957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-liberia","tag-liberia"],"yoast_head":"\nLiberia: US$100M Cocaine Case Finally Begins - Liberia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018 ...The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018 ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Liberia: US$100M Cocaine Case Finally Begins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018 ...The trial of four people accused of being part of a US$100 million cocaine smuggling operation began in Criminal Court \u2018 ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Liberia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-10T15:59:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-10T16:23:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/liberia\/sites\/37\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678451396.73.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Liberia: US$100M Cocaine Case Finally Begins\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-10T15:59:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-10T16:23:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\"},\"wordCount\":423,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/liberia\/sites\/37\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1678451396.73.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Liberia\",\"Liberia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/liberia\/all-news\/liberia-us100m-cocaine-case-finally-begins\",\"name\":\"Liberia: US$100M Cocaine Case Finally Begins - 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