Court orders confiscation of Nayele Ametefe's properties

The Financial and Economic Crimes Division of the Accra High Court has given the state the green light to confiscate a house belonging to the convicted drug peddler, Ruby Adu- Gyamfi aka Nayele Ametefe.

In a judgement delivered yesterday, the court, presided over by Mrs Justice Georgina Mensah-Datsa, held that per the evidence on record, the house, located at East Legon in Accra, which became a subject of litigation, belonged to Nayele.

It, therefore, ordered that the house, valued at $1.6 million, be sold and the proceeds shared in accordance with Section 66 of the Economic and Organised Crime Act, 2010 (Act 804).

Per the court order, 50 per cent of the proceeds will go to the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB), 20 per cent to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), 15 per cent to the Consolidated Fund and 15 per cent to the Judicial Service.

The court was, however, of the view that the state could not prove that another house, located at Pease, near Kuntenase in the Ashanti Region, belonged to Nayele.

Legal tussle

The judgement of the court brings an end to a legal dispute between Nayele’s mother, Madam Akua Adubofo, and NACOB/EOCO.

After Nayele was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment by a court in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2015 for transporting cocaine into the UK, NACOB initiated a series of actions to confiscate her properties, per Section 11 of the Narcotic Drugs (Control, Enforcement and Sanctions) Law, 1990 (PNDCL 236).

The law states: “No person shall possess any property or the proceeds of any property knowing that all or a part of the property or of those proceeds was obtained or derived directly or indirectly from - (a) the commission in Ghana of a narcotic drug offence; or (b) an act anywhere which, if it had occurred in Ghana, would have constituted a narcotic drug offence.”

 In view of that, NACOB and EOCO filed an application on December 3, 2015, praying the court to grant an order for them to confiscate the properties of the convicted drug peddler.

The properties are two houses, an electrical shop known as Night Angels Enterprise, located at Dzorwulu, and six Fidelity Bank accounts, with total cash of approximately GH¢23,000.

The court, in a ruling on April 6, 2016, granted the applications and ordered the confiscation of the electrical shop and the six bank accounts, stating that the properties were derived from the proceeds of a narcotic-related offence.

The confiscation order given on April 6, 2016, however, did not include the two houses due to the lawsuit by Madam Adubofo that the houses belonged to her and not her daughter.