The Deputy Head of Transnational Organize Crime Unit (TOCU) in the Sierra Leone Police, Alie Mansaray that is attached at the Hasting Police Station, in an exclusive interview with this medium revealed that on the 28 February, 2023, his team upon an information received raided a farm along the peninsula axis and apprehended over 1,366 kilo grams of substances that is suspended to Canabies sativa.
According to Deputy Head of TOCU during the raid, they arrested four suspects Samba Mustapha, Samay Momoh, Mohamed Kallon, and Hassan Kargbo of the Big Water, Peninsula.
He said his team after nabbing the four suspects the farm was apparently destroyed, underscoring that the Canabies farm covered an area of over five acre land.
He said the suspects are in their custody and will be charged to court as soon as their investigation are completed and receive the advice from the Department of Public Prosecution (DPP).
He disclosed that key among the crimes they are confronted with as a unit include dugs trafficking, human trafficking, vehicle theft, cybercrime, money laundry among many others.
He maintained that due to their robustness in tackling the above mentioned crimes, they have been able to nab a lot of criminals and prosecuted several of them.
According to Mansaray, though the criminals are making frantic efforts to beat the system, as professionals in their own field, they have been thinking ahead of those criminals a reason they have been making several arrests and charge many of them to court.
The Transnational Organized Crime Unit (TOCU) in Sierra Leone is fully operational with 53 officers from various law enforcement agencies, and its results are encouraging.
Since its establishment in August 2010, until March 2015, the TOCU has seized tons of cannabis, several kilo grams of cocaine, heroin, Kush and since then it has investigated 391 cases resulting in 229 persons prosecuted, and investigated 84 criminal cases resulting in 59 persons prosecuted for organized crimes. In a positive move towards sustainability, the National Security Council in April 2014 approved TOCU to become one of its sub-committees, signifying full integration of TOCU within the Sierra Leonean security architecture and inclusion of the TOCU into the national budget.
