Liberia, July 24 -- This one hit close to home. Johnny Bolar Dean was in the circle of the Inspector General of Police, Gregory Coleman. His arrest and dismissal Thursday came as a shock, not just to investigators, but to Coleman himself.

Dean, the Chief of Intelligence of Unit 106 in the LNP, has been turned over for investigation amid allegations that he accepted a US$10,000 bribe to provide favorable treatment to two suspected drug traffickers being held at Police Headquarters in Monrovia.

The suspects, Johann David Garces Grajales, who holds both Colombian and Spanish passports, and Srdan Seles, a Serbian national, were picked up when officers of the Joint Investigative Task Force set up by President Joseph Boakai, acting on a tip ...