Eight persons, including two National Security personnel, are in the grip of the police at Asankragwa in the Western Region for allegedly robbing some miners of their gold concentrate at Atalia, near Asankragwa.
The suspects were arrested last Saturday on the Asankragwa-Wassa Dunkwa road on board an unregistered black Toyota Land Cruiser.
A search conducted on them revealed a vehicle number plate, AS 6646-20, gold concentrate in five containers, 15 mobile phones, various foreign currencies, and four bags which contained two military uniforms.
DAILY GUDE gathered that nine suspects were initially arrested but one of them, whose name was given as Kofi Asante, managed to escape.
The National Security personnel were identified as Anas Adams and George Osei – both 35 years old.
The other suspects included George Ohene Adjei, 56, driver; Jonathan Aryer, 28, unemployed; Agyeman Jackson, 29, unemployed; Isaac Okuampah, 29, painter; Patrick Fordjour, 29, a taxi driver; and Samuel Obeng, 35, believed to be a dismissed soldier.
Some residents who witnessed the ‘operation’ of the suspects claimed two of them – Samuel Obeng and Agyeman Jackson – were wearing military uniforms.
“They arrived at the mining site and subjected some of the workers to beatings, handcuffed and tied them with ropes and robbed them of their gold concentrate,” some of the residents alleged.
They said after carrying out their operations, the suspects, some of whom were in military uniforms, removed and folded them into their bags, and fled in their vehicle.
The residents later reported the incident to the police.
PoliceAccount
Confirming the story in an interview with DAILY GUIDE, Chief Supt. Nana Kumi, Divisional Police Commander of Asankragwa, said the police intercepted the suspects on Saturday during their normal routine snap checks between Asankragwa and Wassa Dunkwa.
He said the police saw the unregistered Toyota vehicle carrying the suspects approaching, and when they flagged it to stop, the driver refused and sped off.
“So the police chased the suspects and arrested them at Asankragwa. Preliminary investigations revealed that they were the people who went to rob the miners earlier in the day.
“Two of them indicated that they belonged to the National Security and that they went to Kumasi for the rest of the suspects for the alleged operation,” the police officer said.
He continued that “the personnel later brought the suspects to my office. I realized that two of them had identification cards indicating that they belonged to the National Security. So I called the National Security Operatives and they confirmed that indeed the two are their members.”
He said the case was under investigations.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi