Published: August 7, 2026
MONROVIA — The police highway patrol chief accused of escorting Liberia’s largest cocaine shipment wants out on bail, arguing the state cannot put him at the scene and that driving escort, if he did it, is a misdemeanor worth 30 days.
Wadell W. Kwabo has been held at the Monrovia Central Prison since July 30, according to a motion to admit to bail drawn for Criminal Assizes ‘C’ at the Temple of Justice. He is charged with unlicensed sales, trading in transit, transportation of controlled substances, illicit trafficking, criminal conspiracy, criminal facilitation and solicitation.
“It was established that on the 30th of May, 2026 you, Wadell W. Kwabo, along with Anthony T. Blaye, used your assigned police vehicle marked RL-141 to provide escort for the movement/transportation of the cocaine as mentioned above,” the motion recalls from the Writ of Arrrest.
According to the motion, the prosecution has produced no facts placing him at the scene, no evidence he possessed a controlled substance or knew what the vehicles carried, and nothing tying him to the proceeds. Mere presence is not enough to hold a man without bail.
It questions the state on the availability of a forensic report showing the vehicle he escorted carried drugs, and whether RL-141 itself was tested. The motion also asks whether he escorted drugs, people, or money. When, before or after the offense. And what did he gain.
An LDEA report, described in press coverage, alleges that after the delivery, officers met at a military barracks, where an envelope containing US$10,000 was handed over and split, with US$5,000 each to Kwabo and Blaye. The motion does not mention the money.
It says the accusation comes from one man, co-defendant Christian Nyantee, whom it describes as trying to shift liability, and that no eyewitness, victim or police observation corroborates him. Uncorroborated accomplice evidence cannot establish that proof is evident and presumption great, the motion argues, citing Republic v. Toe, 35 LLR 142, and Cooper v. Republic, 32 LLR 77.
Nyantee asked for a security escort and Kwabo supplied one as routine support of the kind given to National Security Agency personnel during major operations, the motion says, with no knowledge of what was being moved.
However, the LDEA account says an NSA officer arranged for Blaye and Kwabo to move cocaine to Thinker Village in Paynesville on May 29, and that early the next morning, the group met contacts from Royesville and escorted a van and a truck toward Roberts International Airport, the two officers trailing in marked police vehicles.
The bail claim rests on Article 21(e) of the 1986 Constitution, which makes all persons bailable except in capital cases where the proof is evident or the presumption great, and on Chapter 13, section 13.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law.
The motion also argues that the arrest itself was unlawful. It reads Rev. Code 2:10.6(b) as authorizing arrest only of a principal perpetrator, not an accessory or facilitator, absent a separate complaint alleging that role. Kwabo was taken solely as an alleged facilitator, it says, and has not been charged with facilitation as a distinct count. On the Penal Code’s grading of facilitation, it argues, an escort is a low-grade misdemeanor carrying no more than 30 days. He had been held eight days when the motion was drawn.
According to the motion, the writ of arrest served on Kwabo alleges that a Serbian national identified as Srdan Seles and his accomplices brought cocaine in by sea in May 2026 and moved consignments to a residence in the VOA Community off the Roberts International Airport highway, a passage naming other people and describing other trips with nothing tying Kwabo to them.
Kwabo is represented by Cllr. Sayma Syrenius Cephus, a former solicitor general and chief prosecutor designated by the U.S. Treasury in August 2022 over public corruption allegations he disputes.
His arrest came as the government moved from seizures to prosecutions. On July 30, authorities destroyed about 4.2 metric tons of cocaine valued at roughly US$336 million. Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman publicly named Kwabo and Blaye, said both would be turned over to the court, and said the shipment could not have entered the country without official protection.
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