Published: July 30, 2026
MAMBAH-KABA, Margibi County – Liberia destroyed the cocaine from its two record seizures on Thursday, and the Ministry of Justice disclosed for the first time how many people the state intends to prosecute over them: 12 charged in the July seizure and five charged in the airport case, one of them a foreign national.
The drugs were burned at the LMHRA waste disposal site in Mambah-Kaba District under a court order, with samples retained as evidence for trial. Officials called it the largest such destruction in the country’s history.
The government valued the two hauls at a combined US$336 million, US$19 million from the June 8 seizure at Roberts International Airport and US$317 million from the July 21 seizure at the VOA Community in lower Margibi County.
A joint security convoy escorted the consignment from Liberia National Police headquarters, accompanied by Justice Minister Oswald Tweh, Executive Protection Service Director Sam Gaye and Information Minister Jerolinmek Matthew Piah. Laboratory tests were run on the packages before they were burned.
Inspector General Gregory O.W. Coleman said the testing was done to answer people who doubt the seizures are real. “We are not burning powder here, it’s the real thing that was seized,” he said.
Piah said the sequence of disclosures was itself the government’s answer to critics. “Who announced that there were drugs? Who announced that there were individuals under investigation? Who called the Media to publicly destroy the drugs? It was all the government,” he said.
Gaye used the ceremony to answer the video of masked men that circulated after the July seizure, in which the speakers gave the state a 24-hour ultimatum.
“They gave an ultimatum that they would come and declare war on the state, so we have burned it, let them come now, we are prepared for them,” Gaye said.
His response treats the threat as real. Hours earlier, at the Ministry of Information’s press briefing, Coleman had dismissed the same video as staged, joking that whoever made it should support the Liberian movie industry and suggesting it was filmed locally. Neither man addressed the other’s characterization, and the government has not said which view it holds.
Coleman said the investigation has moved to how the cocaine entered the country, and that current and former officials are under scrutiny. He told reporters earlier in the day that investigators are examining people who held presidential appointments between 2019 and 2023, and that the trafficking operation was sanctioned by senior state actors.
The Ministry of Justice said prosecutions will proceed as investigators trace the routes and networks behind both seizures.
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