We do not have dogs and scanners, Liberia tells the UK

The story

A record £230million cocaine cargo has been seized in Monrovia, Liberia, discovered during an investigation into a separate £14million shipment bound for the UK. Liberian senator Amara Konneh called it "an SOS call to the UK not to overlook Liberia," warning the country's politicians say they are not receiving enough help to stop class A drugs being smuggled from its territory. A separate 200kg haul was intercepted before a planned 3,000-mile flight to the UK via Brussels. Konneh said the country lacks the detection equipment at its airport to intercept narcotics, and called on the UK to redefine its relationship with Liberia to assist its security agencies, noting that the UK has more sophisticated law enforcement to address drug trafficking than Liberia does. The National Crime Agency declined to comment on the report.

The reframe

The enforcement gap here is structural rather than accidental: the country generating the trafficking risk that eventually lands in the UK is also, by its own politicians' account, the one without the dogs, scanners or resourcing to interrupt it, while the country that stands to benefit from that interruption has, on this occasion, nothing to say. Whether that silence reflects genuine indifference or simply a National Crime Agency unwilling to comment mid-investigation, the imbalance Konneh is describing, enforcement expected from whichever end of the route is least equipped to provide it, is not new, and it will not resolve itself through goodwill alone.

We do not have dogs and scanners at the airport to detect narcotics.Senator Amara Konneh, quoted in Metro, 24 July 2026