MONROVIA-Former Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency Officer-in-Charge DCP Fitzgerald T. M. Biago and former Deputy Officer-in-Charge for Operations ACP Patrick B. Kormazu have now been replaced in the agency’s leadership structure, after their subsequent recalling and suspension by President Joseph Nyumah Boakai.
By Willie N. Tokpah
But while the government has moved swiftly to change the command at the institution responsible for fighting Liberia’s narcotics trade, there remains no publicly available investigative finding against either man.
The development leaves Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency at the center of an increasingly uncomfortable question in Liberia’s escalating war on narcotics, of who is investigating the investigators?
For former LDEA Officer-in-Charge DCP Fitzgerald T. M. Biago and former Deputy Officer-in-Charge for Operations Patrick Kormazu, the question is now personal.
Both senior officials have been removed from their positions and placed under investigation as the Government of Liberia responds to a succession of extraordinary cocaine seizures and allegations of possible compromise within the country’s drug-enforcement system.
But FrontPage Africa has reliably gathered that, despite the government’s announcement that the two officials were turned over for investigation, there is still no clear public indication that a substantive investigation has been completed or, in Kormazu’s case, even what specific allegation prompted his suspension.
The uncertainty is becoming increasingly key, because the government’s anti-drug campaign has reached an unprecedented stage.
Liberia has seized cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars, arrested suspected traffickers, dismissed security personnel and launched investigations into officials working within the very institutions responsible for stopping the trade.
Yet two senior LDEA commanders remain suspended, while fundamental questions about their cases remain unanswered.
Biago, From Drug War Commander to Subject of Investigation
Biago rose to the leadership of the LDEA at a critical moment. He became the agency’s Officer-in-Charge in 2025, assuming responsibility for an institution facing growing pressure to demonstrate that Liberia
would not become a convenient corridor for international narcotics trafficking.
His tenure was marked by increasingly aggressive public messaging against drug traffickers. But the same administration that placed him at the forefront of Liberia’s anti-drug campaign has now suspended him.
Reports carried by several media outlets alleged that Biago was linked to receiving a pickup vehicle from a person described as being connected to a drug trafficking network.
Biago has denied the allegation. The allegation nevertheless became serious to trigger government action.
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai subsequently ordered Biago suspended and subjected to investigation as part of a broader crackdown following the country’s major drug seizures.
Reports at the time said Biago temporarily stepped aside amid the allegations. But suspension is not conviction and allegation is not evidence.
The public now awaits finding from the pronounce investigation as to whether investigators will establish, through documents, witnesses and other evidence, whether the alleged vehicle transaction occurred and, if so, what its purpose was.
Until such findings are produced, Biago remains entitled to the presumption of innocence.
Then There Is Patrick Kormazu
Kormazu’s situation is different, and arguably more difficult to explain. As Deputy Officer-in-Charge for Operations, Kormazu was one of the agency’s senior operational commanders.
When the government announced his removal, it also said he would be investigated. But unlike Biago, there has been no clearly articulated public allegation explaining what Kormazu is accused of doing.
No specific vehicle allegation has been publicly tied to him. No public document has identified him as a suspect in the RIA cocaine shipment and no government statement reviewed for this report has explained whether his suspension is connected to the June airport seizure, the later Duazon operation, an internal LDEA matter or another security investigation.
That has raised a concern over Kormazu suspension and the status of the government investigation against him. The answer matters because suspension from a senior law enforcement position is not a trivial administrative measure. It can damage a career, reputation and public standing even when no criminal charge follows.
Justice Ministry Leaves Key Question Open
FrontPage Africa sought clarification from the Ministry of Justice on Tuesday, August 18. Communication Director Jutonue Kollie, when contacted by mobile phone, initially said information regarding the matter was not to his knowledge.
He nevertheless confirmed that the two officials had been turned over for investigation. When question by FrontPage Africa that despite being turned over, whether an actual investigation was ongoing, Director Kollie said he would return the call within a few minutes.
He had not done so up to press time. That unanswered response leaves the status of the investigation unclear. And it raises a larger institutional concern about whether the government credibly demand accountability from LDEA officers while failing to provide clarity about the accountability process being applied to its own senior commanders.
