Eight individuals, including a police officer, have been charged in connection with a $523,000 gold scam.
The accused persons, comprising six Ghanaians and two Turkish nationals, have pleaded not guilty to various charges, including conspiracy, defrauding by false pretense, and money laundering.
According to the prosecution, the Ghanaians planned to sell fake gold to the Turkish nationals, who had transferred the funds for the purchase.
The prosecution alleges that the accused persons played various roles in the scam, including procuring fake gold bars, assaying the bars, and providing security personnel to feign the arrest of the Turkish nationals.
The prosecution also alleges that the accused persons shared the proceeds of the scam, with the second and third accused persons giving the National Security Personnel GHS1,000,000.00, equivalent to US$80,000, as their share of the transaction.
The court has ordered the accused persons to deposit their passports at the registry of the court as part of their bail conditions and to report to the investigator every Monday at the beginning of every month. The case has been adjourned to May 14 for the Case Management Conference.
In a related development, the National Security Agency had received information on November 24, 2023, that some persons involved in gold trading were planning to scam two foreigners.
The agency followed up on the information, which led them to the second and third accused persons.
The two accused persons informed the National Security personnel of their plan to defraud the seventh and eighth accused persons, who are Turkish nationals, of Akbn Kuyumculuk Sanyi Ve Tiocaret Anonim Sirrketti, a Turkish company dealing in gold.
The plan was to serve as revenge for the two foreigners, who had caused the second accused person to lose huge sums of money in an earlier gold transaction.
The National Security personnel decided to play along with their plan and obtained details of the operations, which were scheduled to take place on November 28, 2023.
On November 28, 2023, the National Security personnel intercepted and arrested the first and fifth accused persons, together with the seventh and eighth accused persons, at the Airport Hajj Road in two Toyota Belta vehicles with registration numbers GR 7820-22 and GE 9954-22.
When the vehicles were searched, the arresting officers found and seized a locked metal box containing ten (10) metal bars suspected to be gold.
In addition to the box, they also retrieved a gold test report from Benkotec Refinery dated November 28, 2023, and an acknowledgment letter of money transfer to Benkotec.
The suspected gold bars were taken to the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC) office at Kotoka International Airport, where the PMMC’s report concluded that the metal bars are fake.
The second, third, and sixth accused persons were later arrested at Afrikiko Restaurant the next day, while the fourth accused person reported himself to the National Security Secretariat upon an invitation.
Investigations revealed that in the early part of November 2023, the seventh and eighth accused persons approached the second accused person with a request to purchase 175kg of gold.
However, due to the market price of gold at the time, the seventh and eighth accused persons reduced the quantity to ten (10) kilograms.
