Published: July 29, 2026
MONROVIA — President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s son said Wednesday that investigators have already reached out to him in Liberia’s cocaine trafficking investigation, and denied any involvement in the trade, in his first public response to a video circulating since last week in which men displaying what they called samples from the country’s largest seizure addressed him by name.
“I have never participated in discussions involving narcotics trafficking. I have never facilitated illegal drug activity. I have never accepted money in exchange for influence,” Joseph N. Boakai Jr. said in a statement. “I welcome a full, impartial, and thorough investigation.”
The men in the video called Boakai Jr. family and threatened him for remaining silent. [TK: the specific allegation the video makes against him, in one sentence, and the source of the footage.]
Boakai Jr. said the matter began with a threatening WhatsApp message from a number traced to Colombia. He said he blocked the number, took screenshots and turned them over to the Liberia National Police and the National Security Agency. He said the video that later circulated deliberately left out his rejection of the claims made in it.
He also addressed the appearance in the footage of Ibrahima Touré, saying he met him earlier this year through a mutual acquaintance and that their discussions were about sports and health care, not illegal activity.
Boakai Jr. said he has stayed out of government since early 2024 to avoid any perception that he wields influence.
“I have never held myself out as a government official. I neither make government decisions nor direct government institutions. My relationship to the Presidency is one of family—not constitutional authority,” he said. He said he was never asked to facilitate anything illegal or to lend the family name to a favor.
Calling drug trafficking an unforgivable offense against Liberia, he said he would cooperate fully and urged security institutions to pursue the case “without fear, without favor, and without political influence.” He said investigators have also reached out to Touré, and he referred to accounts involving Habib Shireff. [TK: what those accounts are and what he said about them. As written this is unpublishable.]
“No one—not even the son of a President—is above the law,” he said, appealing to young people and communities to join the fight against narcotics.
His statement follows the detention and questioning this month of four senior security officers, three from the Liberia National Police and one from the NSA, over the Duazon seizure. None has been charged.
The Ministry of Justice has already dismissed the video’s allegations against the president and the first family as false and malicious.
Liberian authorities seized 237.6 kilograms of cocaine, valued at about US$19.2 million, at Roberts International Airport on June 8, and approximately 3,971 kilograms, valued at about US$317.7 million, at a residence in Duazon on July 21. The Duazon seizure is the largest in the country’s history.
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