Ghana Police Seize 41 Cannabis Slabs and GH¢9,000 Bribe

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Early on Sunday morning, a bus driver in the Bono Region allegedly reached for his wallet and tried to settle things with cash. It didn’t work. Police say the GH¢9,000 he put forward was turned down on the spot, and it is now being held as evidence against him.

Two men standing handcuffed in front of a bus with boxes of yellow fruit in the foreground

The trouble began around 7:00 a.m. on November 8, when a white-and-red Kia Grand Bus, registration AS-2415-26, rolled up to the Twumasikrom checkpoint on the Sunyani–Berekum highway. The bus had left Accra and was bound for Sampa, in the Jaman North District. Officers waved it over and went through the vehicle.

In a storage compartment, they came across two brown cartons. Inside were 41 compressed slabs, each wrapped in yellow and sealed with sellotape. Police believe the slabs are cannabis, though that has yet to be confirmed.

Two people stand beside an open luggage compartment of a red bus, showing bags and equipment inside.

The driver, 33-year-old Duah Akwasi Moses, and his 42-year-old mate, Kofi Antwi Bosiako, were taken into custody. During questioning, Moses is said to have told officers that a stranger in Accra had given him the cartons to hand over to someone waiting in Sampa. He then allegedly tried to bargain, offering GH¢9,000 if the officers would let him and his mate go.

They refused. The money was documented as an exhibit.

Two men standing behind a table covered with yellow packaged bundles

Both men are still held by police and are helping with inquiries while a court appearance is prepared. The Drugs Law Enforcement Unit (DLEU) has been brought in to take the investigation further. Its work will have to answer what the arrests have so far left open: who in Accra loaded the cartons onto the bus, who was waiting in Sampa, how many people stand behind the shipment, and whether laboratory tests will back up what police suspect the slabs to be.

The seizure comes in a busy week for drug enforcement in Ghana. Only days earlier, the Ghana Navy stopped two boats near Ada carrying about 4.7 tonnes of suspected cannabis, and police separately recovered 3,752 slabs of suspected Indian hemp in the same area. Nothing released so far links those cases to the Bono arrests.