Leijdekkers’ Shadow Over Liberia’s Cocaine Probe Grows Harder to Ignore

MONROVIA – For most of this year, Jos Leijdekkers has lived in Liberia as a whisper. Security officers traded sightings no one could pin down: a convoy on the Bo Waterside road, a boat slipping down the coast from Freetown. Each time FrontPageAfrica asked for a name, a date or a document behind the talk, the answer came back the same.

---

By Rodney D. Sieh

---

“We couldn’t confirm because it was all ‘they-say,’” a member of Liberia’s Joint Security investigative team told FrontPageAfrica, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have no confirmation based on our investigation. Jos knew both European and US officials were looking for him and Liberia was a no-go.”

But Liberia’s security establishment has not always treated Leijdekkers as rumour. FrontPageAfrica can now report that in July, days after the record cocaine seizure off the RIA Highway, a senior security official named the Dutch fugitive as the mastermind behind the attempt to traffic US$19 million worth of cocaine through Roberts International Airport on June 8. It was the first time a Liberian official had tied the country’s cocaine crisis directly to Leijdekkers. FrontPageAfrica has not independently verified the claim beyond the official’s account, and no charging document naming Leijdekkers has been made public.

On October 14, The Guardian newspaper in London went further. Its investigation, built on what it describes as dozens of interviews with intelligence and police officers on two continents, says Leijdekkers has turned Sierra Leone into the world’s first true narco state and built operating bases across the region, Liberia among them. It also attributes July’s record Liberian seizure, not the smaller airport shipment, to him.

Three accounts now sit side by side: an official who named him in July, an investigator who says his presence was never confirmed, and a foreign newspaper that says he was here and owned the biggest haul of all. They cannot all be fully right. Which one holds will shape the most consequential drug prosecution in Liberia’s history.

What Liberia Knew in July

The June 8 airport case was the first crack. Screeners at RIA flagged six cargo boxes declared as Maggi cubes and lappas. Inside were 198 compressed plates of cocaine, 237.6 kilograms in all, valued at about US$19.2 million and bound for London via Brussels Airlines.

Six weeks later, on July 21, a Joint National Security Investigative Task Force raided a compound on Cement Road in the VOA Community, off the RIA Highway. Investigators recovered 3,971 plates of cocaine, nearly four tonnes, which the State values at US$317.68 million. They also found diving suits, a firearm, GPS trackers, a drone and Starlink satellite equipment. Two foreigners were arrested at the scene: Johann David Garces Grajales, who carries Colombian and Spanish passports, and Srdan Seles, a Serbian national.

Justice Minister Oswald Tweh said at the time that the evidence pointed to a sophisticated, well-funded trafficking network that had operated in Liberia for more than six years. Inspector General of Police Gregory Coleman said both the June and July shipments entered Liberia from Sierra Leone. Within 48 hours of the raid, at least two senior officers of the National Security Agency and the Liberia National Police had been detained for questioning.

Even then, the case had loose ends. Colombia’s Honorary Consulate in Monrovia told FrontPageAfrica it had no record of Garces Grajales as a Colombian national and could not vouch for his passport. Reports at the time said the Liberia Immigration Service could not produce a record of his entry into the country. And investigators noted that the June and July shipments were packaged differently, an early sign that more than one network might be at work.

The Promises: An Indictment and a Dutch Team

The July official’s claim did not come alone. That same week, National Security Advisor Samuel Kofi Woods and Justice Minister Tweh met Dutch government officials in Accra, Ghana. The two sides agreed that the Netherlands would send a team to Liberia in August. Two senior government officials told FrontPageAfrica that Liberia was preparing an indictment against Leijdekkers, treading carefully because of his ties to the Sierra Leonean government.

Three months later, neither commitment is visible on the public record. The Ministry of Justice has not said whether the Dutch team arrived or what it found. No indictment naming Leijdekkers has been filed in any Liberian court. Inspector General Coleman promised in July to pursue suspects abroad through extradition and mutual legal assistance; FrontPageAfrica has seen no request to Freetown or The Hague.

Instead, the cases moved in other directions. In August, prosecutors charged former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor in connection with the US$317 million seizure. On October 7, a 55-page indictment named her, former NSA deputy director Gerald Folley Smith, former airport operations chief Mark Kuiah and others. All are presumed innocent. Leijdekkers’ name appears in neither the airport indictment nor the VOA indictment.

‘They-Say’: The Presence Question

The Joint Security source and the July official are not necessarily contradicting each other. One is talking about where Leijdekkers was. The other is talking about whose network moved the cocaine.

A trafficker of Leijdekkers’ reach does not need to set foot in Liberia to run cocaine through it. His operation works through proxies, corrupt port workers and a small circle of trusted lieutenants, keeping the boss far from the product. The investigator’s point is narrower: Liberian agencies never established that he entered the country.

The Dutch appeared to believe he did, or planned to. In May, De Telegraaf reported that Dutch special forces twice came close to seizing Leijdekkers in international waters off Sierra Leone as he travelled by boat to Liberia. Both operations were called off at the last minute; one, according to Omroep Brabant, because he never left Sierra Leone. Dutch prosecutors would neither confirm nor deny the account. If the Dutch had intelligence that Liberia was his destination, it is fair to ask whether that intelligence was shared with Monrovia, and what the promised August team brought with it.

What the Guardian Adds

The Guardian’s Liberia claims are brief, but each lands on a raw nerve in Monrovia:

* A base in Liberia. The report says Leijdekkers has established operating bases in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and, most recently, Ghana.

* Diplomatic passports and an open border. It says he and his men move around the region on diplomatic passports, and cites witnesses who describe Liberian police applauding his convoy as it crossed the border.

* Ownership of the record haul. It describes the nearly four tonnes found near Monrovia on July 21 as Leijdekkers’ cocaine.

* Presence on the eve of the bust. It says sources reported that he returned to Freetown from Liberia the day before the July bust was announced, and that the same sources recognised the man arrested with the Monrovia cocaine as someone seen with Leijdekkers in Freetown.

The report quotes a Dutch official warning that “the entire West Africa region is at risk.” It does not say whether Liberian authorities were asked to comment on these claims, and none is quoted. Its sourcing, on Liberia as on Sierra Leone, is largely anonymous intelligence and police officers. Leijdekkers’ lawyer has dismissed the allegations as politically driven. The Guardian reports that Leijdekkers is married to Agnes Bio, daughter of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, while stressing there is no suggestion the president is implicated in any illegal activity linked to him.

Where the Accounts Collide

The sharpest problem is not whether Leijdekkers entered Liberia. It is which cocaine was his.

In October, Liberian investigators told FrontPageAfrica they had found no connection between the US$19 million airport case and the US$317 million VOA case. The airport pipeline, they say, ran Sierra Leone–Liberia–United Kingdom/Netherlands, moving cocaine out by commercial airfreight under false declarations. That fits the July official’s account, which placed Leijdekkers behind the airport shipment.

The VOA case, as laid out in the October indictment, is a different operation: cocaine landed from the Atlantic in May, a fishing business and a front airline as cover, and protection allegedly bought from senior Liberian officials. Investigators describe its route as Colombia–Brazil–Liberia–Ghana–Eastern Europe–Dubai.

The Guardian attributes the VOA haul to Leijdekkers. Liberia’s investigators do not. There are three ways to read the gap. The Guardian’s sources may have folded Liberia’s two seizures into one story, as many Liberians did for months. Liberian investigators may have drawn the line between the two networks too neatly. Or the networks may be separate on paper but connected at the top, with Leijdekkers or his associates touching both.

One thread makes the third reading hard to dismiss. In September, FrontPageAfrica reported that investigators had traced four Balkan-linked operatives tied to Liberia’s drug trade, including one named Seleš, to multiple visits to Freetown, with what officials described as strong indications of ties to Leijdekkers. Srdan Seles, the Serbian arrested at the VOA compound, shares that name. The Guardian says the man arrested with the Monrovia cocaine was seen with Leijdekkers in Freetown. Whether these refer to the same man is a question Liberian investigators can answer, and so far have not.

The official account has also shifted on how the VOA cocaine came ashore. In July, investigators told FrontPageAfrica it was run in by speedboat and canoe at Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County, about 10 miles from the Sierra Leone border, with divers in wetsuits bringing it in from the water. The October indictment places the landing on the Po River at Royesville, in Bomi County. Either the cocaine moved through both, or the State revised its account. Defence lawyers will want to know which.

How the Report Changes the Investigation

1. Silence is no longer an option. Until now, Liberian officials could treat Leijdekkers as speculation in public while naming him in private. A major international newspaper has now stated on the record that Liberia’s biggest drug haul belonged to him and that Liberian police cheered his convoy. If that is false, the Liberia National Police, the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency and the Ministry of Justice need to say so, with reasons. If it is true, they need to explain why their own investigators say they found nothing.

2. The Accra commitments are now a test. The July meeting in Accra produced two promises: a Dutch team in August and an indictment against Leijdekkers. The Guardian report makes both a matter of public interest. If the Dutch came and shared intelligence, Liberians are entitled to know what the State did with it. If the indictment was shelved, they are entitled to know why.

3. The border and immigration questions are now specific. The claim that police applauded a convoy at the border, and that the network travels on diplomatic passports, points to named institutions: border police, the Liberia Immigration Service and whoever authorises diplomatic courtesies at entry points. The State still has not publicly explained how Garces Grajales entered Liberia without a record. Inspector General Coleman has already named officers he says took about US$5,000 each to escort a cocaine landing. The Guardian’s claim widens that circle.

4. The prosecution has a new vulnerability. The State’s theory in the VOA case is a Latin American and Balkan network shielded by Liberian insiders. A credible public claim that the same cocaine belonged to a Dutch kingpin operating from Freetown is a gift to defence lawyers looking for doubt, as is a landing site that moved from Robertsport to Royesville. Liberia has been here before. In 2022, officials found 520 kilograms of cocaine, worth about US$100 million, at the Sonit compound in Monrovia; a jury acquitted all four defendants in May 2023, a judge ordered US$200,000 in seized cash returned, and the men left the country. Weak chains of custody, thin forensics, and trouble proving who owned the cargo sank that case. This one is eight times heavier.

5. Liberia’s reputation is now tied to Freetown’s. Europe is already tightening scrutiny of passengers from Liberia and Sierra Leone on Brussels-bound flights. Ghana has arrested men accused of representing Leijdekkers’ network after French customs seized nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine in Dunkirk. A suspect linked to Liberia’s case was arrested in Accra at Liberia’s request and then reportedly vanished. Every week Liberia spends unable to say clearly what it knows makes it easier for partners to treat Monrovia and Freetown as a single problem.

The Questions That Remain

* Did the Dutch team arrive in August, and what intelligence did it share on Leijdekkers’ links to Liberia?

* Is the indictment against Leijdekkers still being prepared, or has it been set aside?

* What evidence led a senior security official to name him as the mastermind of the June airport shipment?

* Is Srdan Seles the same man investigators traced to Freetown, and has anyone placed him with Leijdekkers?

* Did the VOA cocaine land at Robertsport, Royesville or both?

* Has the Liberia Immigration Service checked entry records at the Sierra Leone border for the dates the Guardian’s sources cite, including the eve of the July 21 bust?

* Will the Ministry of Justice publicly respond to the Guardian’s claim that the US$317 million haul was Leijdekkers’ cocaine?

Myth or Map?

Liberia’s security establishment has said two things about Jos Leijdekkers this year. In private, a senior official named him as the hand behind the airport shipment, and colleagues spoke of an indictment. On the investigative team, he remains “they-say.” The truth may sit between: a man who never crossed into Liberia himself, but whose money, people and cocaine did.

What has changed is the cost of not knowing. A rumour can be ignored. A published claim that Liberian police cheered Europe’s most wanted trafficker across the border cannot. The Guardian has done what months of whispers could not: it has made Leijdekkers Liberia’s question to answer, in public.

Jos Leijdekkers has not been charged with any crime in Liberia and, through his lawyers, denies the allegations against him. All defendants named in this report are presumed innocent unless proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.