Kissi Agyebeng
The Office of the Attorney General (AG) has returned the Office of the Special Prosecutor’s (OSP) docket on former Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Dapaah and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffuor, which called on the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) to investigate the two for money laundering and structuring.
According to a document emanating from the AG’s office, the OSP’s docket did not provide sufficient information regarding its investigations into the two that show suspicion of the offence of money laundering and structuring.
The documents signed by Evelyn Keelson, a Chief State Attorney, also noted that a letter written by EOCO in February 1, 2024, asking the OSP for a full report into the investigation it had conducted in respect of the former minister and her husband has still not been responded to by the OSP.
“In the absence of the identification of any criminality associated with the properties retrieved from the suspects, the OSP’s referral to EOCO for investigations to be conducted into money laundering is without basis,” the document forwarded to EOCO from the AG’s Office pointed out.
Genesis
The OSP arrested Madam Dapaah on July 24, 2023, on suspicion of corruption and corruption-related offences after she and her husband, Daniel Osei Kuffuor reported huge sums of money was stolen from their home by their two house maids.
The OSP on January 25 this year dropped the case of suspected corruption and corruption-related act against Madam Dapaah.
It was not immediately known why the Office decided to drop the cases, as the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, Madam Dapaah, her husband and their lawyers met in the judge’s chambers when the case was called, at the instance of the OSP.
But it later emerged that the OSP had transferred the case to the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) for further investigation due to “indications of suspected money laundering and structuring,” an offence the mandate of the OSP does not cover.
A High Court in Accra subsequently ordered the OSP to return the $590,000 and GH¢2.73 million its officers found and seized from the home of the couple.
The OSP, in a press statement, indicated that it has transferred the investigation to EOCO because after “extensive investigation by the OSP and a parallel inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States, no direct and immediate evidence of corruption has been found in the seized funds and frozen bank accounts linked to Ms. Dapaah and her associates.”
It said the investigation has identified strong indications of suspected money laundering and structuring, indicating that while the OSP acknowledges these suspected offences, they do not fall directly within its mandate as it does not fall within corruption and corruption-related offences as defined under section 79 of the Office of the Special Prosecutor Act, 2017 (Act 959).
EOCO Request To AG
EOCO after receiving the docket from the OSP wrote to the Office of the Attorney General seeking directions on the referral by the OSP for an investigation into the crime of money laundering and structuring.
The request by EOCO had indicated that “upon a review of the docket from the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP), it is not clear which predicate offence to posit an alleged case of money laundering by the OSP on.”
The AG’s office in a response observed that the OSP did not place a copy of its report on investigations conducted by that outfit on the docket submitted to EOCO.
It also observed that the OSP’s letter to EOCO did not disclose the basis for the suspicion of the commission of the offence of money laundering and structuring.
“It is thus difficult to ascertain the basis for the OSP’s suspicion of the commission of the offence of money laundering and structuring by the suspects,” the response indicated.
“A study of all the documents on the docket submitted by the OSP does not disclose how the offence of money laundering and structuring might have been committed, as alleged by the OSP,” the AG’s response noted.
The AG’s Office also noted that the OSP did not present a copy of the report on the collaborative investigations conducted with the FBI to EOCO, neither are the findings of the “transboundary investigations” conducted by the OSP stated in the OSP’s docket in spite of the fact that EOCO had written to the OSP requesting these documents.
The document further points out that Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, 2020 (Act 1044) create offences relating to money laundering, indicating that the offence of ‘structuring’ is not known to Ghana laws.
“At the heart of the offence of money laundering is gains obtained from criminal proceeds arising from an unlawful activity, which is defined in section 63 of Act 1044 to refer to offences specifically spelt out therein.”
It says the status of property being proceeds of crime is therefore crucial to money laundering and this is even so under section 55(2) of Act 1044 where an accused may be presumed to have unlawfully acquired property in her possession which cannot be accounted for.
“In any event, it is material to note that section 55(2) of Act 1044 is triggered only in the course of a trial of an accused person for a specified offence under the Act.
“In the absence of the identification of any criminality associated with the properties retrieved from the suspects, the OSP’s referral to EOCO for investigations to be conducted into money laundering is without basis,” the document points out.
It also indicate that although EOCO has the mandate to commence investigations into the source(s) of the money found in the home of the suspects, “we do not find this necessary since this Office before the reference by the OSP, had instructed the Police Service who are already seized with other aspects of the case to investigate the sources of the huge sums of money found in the home of the suspects, a fact the OSP is aware of.”
“In light of the above, the OSP docket on the subject matter is returned herewith,” the AG’s response added.
BY Gibril Abdul Razak