Published: August 7, 2026
MONROVIA — A telephone call Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti placed to the White House put U.S. law enforcement personnel on Liberian soil within two days of the country’s largest airport cocaine seizure, she said Thursday, disclosing for the first time a role in the narcotics investigation at the center of allegations against her.
By Lennart Dodoo & Roseline Gbessagee
Minister Nyanti, who is also dean of the Cabinet, said she spoke with Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, using talking points supplied by Director of the Executive Protection Service (EPS) Sam Gaye, and afterward took a call from the White House Situation Room and the U.S. National Security Council. Speaking at the Ministry of Information’s regular press briefing at the Charles Gbenyon Press Conference Hall, she said the deployment followed the US$19.2 million cocaine interception at Roberts International Airport.
“Until I spoke today, you didn’t even know what I was doing in this investigation,” she said. “People don’t even know I’ve been part of this investigation.”
Minister Nyanti said anyone charged in the case will face trial in Liberia, closing off an expectation in public commentary that suspects would be handed to American prosecutors. “So please don’t look for U.S. prosecution in this regard,” she said. She said people who violate Liberian law will be prosecuted on Liberian soil, and that only those who breach the laws of other jurisdictions, such as countries where the drugs were destined, could be tried elsewhere.
She spoke to rebut claims circulating on radio talk shows and social media that the Foreign Ministry, and she personally, approved the use of diplomatic pouches to move narcotics. She said the accusations against her date to 2023 and are not new, but their effect now is.
“What is new is the extent to which these lies undermine the fight against drug trafficking in Liberia,” she said, adding that they undermine a credible investigation and Liberia’s standing abroad.
Minister Nyanti said the ministry has no operational role in diplomatic cargo at all. Embassies are entitled to duty-free diplomatic cargo under the Vienna Convention, she said, and the process runs from a request to the chief of protocol, who verifies that the applicants are accredited diplomats entitled to the benefit, to the Liberia Revenue Authority, which grants the exemption. Shipping arrangements, she said, are handled by the missions themselves, and the ministry neither sees the consignments nor knows where they go.
“Which embassy are you accusing?” she said, challenging her accusers to name the mission they believe moved drugs. She said the charge lands on Liberia’s partners rather than on her. “It’s not me you’re accusing. You’re targeting me, but you’re not accusing me, you’re accusing the diplomats.”
Justice Minister and Attorney General Cllr. N. Oswald Tweh, who followed her, said the ministry will not act on names circulating in public forums.
“The Ministry of Justice does not investigate or arrest people simply because their names are mentioned in public,” Cllr. Tweh said. “We do not build criminal cases on rumors, speculations or political commentary. We build cases on facts, evidence and the law.”
Cllr. Tweh said the test is whether information can be independently verified and whether the evidence establishes probable cause. Where credible evidence exists, he said, investigators will pursue it and arrests will follow, and where it does not, the ministry will not bring charges to satisfy public opinion. He warned that accusers who name individuals without a factual basis expose themselves to legal consequences, saying freedom of expression carries responsibility.
He invited anyone holding information to take it to the Justice Ministry, the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency, the Liberia National Police or any member of the joint security task force, and said those who distrust Liberia’s security institutions should give their evidence to foreign partners, including the United States. Tweh said he met the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Monrovia on Thursday morning, and that the chargé told him a stable Liberia serves American interests.
Information Minister Jerolinmek Matthew Piah, who opened the briefing, said no official is shielded from the investigation, naming the attorney general and the dean of the Cabinet as examples of people who would be charged if evidence pointed to them. He said the pursuit of a vessel that drifted out of Liberian territorial waters as the Coast Guard closed in is continuing with the help of regional partners, and that additional charges will follow as investigators finish their work.
Meanwhile, Minister Nyanti said Liberia has begun coordinating both the African group of three and the 10 elected members on Aug. 1 at the UN Security Council. She said Liberia served as the bridge that preserved the mandate of the U.N. Office for West Africa and the Sahel, and that she was in Khartoum and Juba on Security Council business, not on vacation.
Asked whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia is still coming to Liberia, she said legal proceedings in the United States have not concluded and that his arrival remains possible but not settled.
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