{"id":198785,"date":"2016-03-14T13:17:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T13:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=198785"},"modified":"2016-03-14T13:17:48","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T13:17:48","slug":"british-drug-lord-charged-in-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=198785","title":{"rendered":"British &#8216;drug lord&#8217; charged in Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">David McDermott, the British national and in-law to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, who was\u00a0arrested in the country in connection with a plot to import \u00a371 million worth of cocaine into the UK, has been arraigned for extradition processes to begin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mr. McDermott, who has been on the run from UK authorities for some years now, and married to the step-daughter of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Kofi Wampah, was charged with dealing in prohibited drugs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-198791 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/David-McDermott-3.jpg\" alt=\"David McDermott (3)\" width=\"768\" height=\"574\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">According to Ghanaian prosecutors at an Accra Circuit Court today [Monday], the fugitive, who was arrested in an international sting operation at his home in the Burma Hills area of Accra last week, is in possession of Ghanaian passport with the name David Smith and runs a mining company in the Eastern Region.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">They also told the court that investigations are still ongoing, as they expect additional\u00a0information from their British counterparts to facilitate their investigations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The fugitive did not have any legal representation in court for the first hearing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-198789 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/David-McDermott-1.jpg\" alt=\"David McDermott (1)\" width=\"768\" height=\"574\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The suspect is said to be a member of an organised crime syndicate from Liverpool, and he has been on the run for three-years after being part of a plot to import \u00a371 million worth of cocaine into the UK.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">McDermott\u2019s gang is believed to be responsible for the\u00a0failed smuggling operation discovered by Border Force at Tilbury Docks in May 2013, when officers seized 400kg (881Ibs) of cocaine smuggled into the country in a container of frozen Argentinian beef.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The case has been adjourned to the March 30, 2016.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By: Fred Djabanor\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David McDermott, the British national and in-law to the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, who was\u00a0arrested in the country in connection with a plot to import \u00a371 million worth of cocaine into the UK, has been arraigned for extradition processes to begin. Mr. McDermott, who has been on the run from UK authorities for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}