Three men from the Mobile Force Unit of the Ghana Police Service have been placed in custody for allegedly engaging in an unauthorised assignment and extorting $24,000 from a suspected cocaine dealer. They are Sgt John Abagye, Sgt Samuel Mills and L/Cpl Abdule-Raman Mumuni. The drug suspect is Mohammed Yusif, who is also in custody. The officers are accused of freeing the alleged dealer without authority and failing to make an entry in the station diary when the suspect was earlier arrested. Yusif was said to have been arrested by the policemen at a point in Takoradi, where he bought $20,000 worth of cocaine from a seller in a waiting taxi. The source said the policemen, however, failed to arrest "the taxi driver or the seller of the cocaine and also did not record the number of the taxi or the case in the station diary. According to investigations, the police officers demanded $8,000 from Yusif after his arrest but he pleaded to give them $4,000 upon which he was released. Not satisfied with the behaviour of the policemen, Yusif lodged a complaint with the Regional Police headquarters at Sekondi where an identification parade was held during which he identified Abagye, Mills and Mumuni. He said he suspected that the three policemen had colluded with the driver of the taxi and the man who sold the substance to him to dupe him of his money and turn round to intimidate him. When contacted, the Western Regional Police Commander, Kofi Duku Arthur, he confirmed the alleged involvement of three of his men and a suspect and added that all of them were under police arrest. He said the Regional Criminal Investigations Unit was investigating the matter. Source: Daily Graphic