Home » Liberia: LDEA Airport Agents Get Maximum 20-Year Sentences for Cocaine Trafficking

Liberia: LDEA Airport Agents Get Maximum 20-Year Sentences for Cocaine Trafficking

Liberia: LDEA Airport Agents Get Maximum 20-Year Sentences for Cocaine Trafficking

A court in Kakata sentenced LDEA agents Joe Logan and Lovette Flowers and Nigerian national Tony Obi to 20 years each for cocaine trafficking.

KAKATA, Margibi County – Two Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency officers assigned to Roberts International Airport were sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison, the maximum term, after a jury found them guilty in a cocaine trafficking case in which prosecutors said they took seized drugs and sold them on the black market.

Judge Roosevelt Z. Willie of the 13th Judicial Circuit Court imposed the same sentence on Special Agent Joe Logan, Agent Lovette Flowers and Tony Obi, a Nigerian national. The court ordered Obi deported to Nigeria after he serves his term.

Prosecutors told the jury that 14 plates of cocaine were confiscated in the operation and that Logan and Flowers took four of them and sold them. They also alleged that members of the network paid about US$10,000 in bribes to LDEA officers.

The first-degree felony drug offense cited in the proceedings carries a prison term of 10 to 20 years.

Willie handed down the final judgment a day after the Supreme Court’s mandate was read in the circuit court on Monday, allowing it to conclude the case.

The case grew out of the July 2025 interception of Quita Dolo Kosso, who arrived at the airport from Thailand on a Kenya Airways flight, according to court records and trial evidence. Kosso was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Abdullah Sherrif, another LDEA officer linked to the operation, was reportedly convicted and sentenced to two years. Prosecutors later tied Logan, Flowers and Obi to the wider operation.

The state called four witnesses during the monthlong trial and argued that the officers’ role made the crime more serious because they were responsible for detecting and fighting illegal drugs.

Defense lawyers argued the state had not proved guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Their central challenge was the quantity seized: they said the investigation first recorded 10 plates of cocaine, while prosecutors later presented evidence of 14, a contradiction they said should have created reasonable doubt.

The 12-member jury rejected that argument and returned guilty verdicts earlier this month after about two hours of closing arguments.

The drugs in the case were valued at about US$181,008 and LD$63,201,600.

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