By Nelson Manneh
The Drug Law Enforcement Agency the Gambia (DLEAG) has arrested twenty-one people in a weeklong nationwide crackdown on illicit drug activity, including a Canadian and a Senegalese national, officials announced.
Nineteen of the suspects are Gambians, among them an adult woman taken into custody at the Barra ferry terminal in the North Bank Region. She was arrested alongside another Gambian with 982 pills of ecstasy, according to Ousman Saidyba, the Agency’s public relations officer.
“For the two foreign nationals who are Senegalese and a Canadian. The Senegalese national was arrested at Brikama Kaira Kunda in the West Coast Region together with a Gambian national for joint possession of three bundles of cannabis sativa while the Canadian national was arrested at Brusubi with some quantities of cocaine,” Saidyba said.
The crackdown , part of intensified operational activities, yielded a wide range of narcotics: 31 bundles, 10 parcels and 156 wraps of cannabis sativa; cannabis resin (hashish) in several quantities; 18 pieces of skunk cannabis; 23 pieces of kush; two medical plastics and 65 wraps of ecstasy totaling 1,982 tablets; and four pellets of cocaine.
Saidyba said the Agency also filed five new drug possession cases during the reporting period, all under section 35 of the Drug Control Act (DCA) 2003. “The Agency successfully prosecuted and secured convictions in five drug related matters. One of the cases was a possession matter contrary to section 35 of the DCA 2003 and the other four cases were drug trafficking matters contrary to section 43 of the DCA 2003,” he noted.
Four of the convictions were secured at the Brikama Magistrate Court and one at Essau Magistrate Court, underscoring what officials described as the Agency’s zero-tolerance approach to drug trafficking and possession.
