The Ghana Police Service has disputed claims it has not been committed and transparent in the investigation of the Ghc1.3 million gold scam, of which a US firm, Green Global Resources, were victims.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, the Police’s Public Affairs Director, Sheila Abayie Buckman, indicated that, the US firm was well aware that the police personnel involved in that scam were undergoing disciplinary action, among others.
“From Police investigations, we realized that some five officers may be part of whatever allegations have been raised against them for misconduct, and these five officers were interdicted and as I speak to you now, they are facing internal disciplinary charges.”
“The docket on them has also been forwarded to the Attorney General’s office for advice and possible prosecution,” DSP Buckman added.
She revealed that representatives of Green Global Resources have been in close contact with the investigators, and that it came as a surprise that they organised a press conference “saying they do not have trust in the police and that investigation has not been transparent.”
Furthermore, DSP Buckman said they could have resorted to the Inspector General of Police’s office “for whatever is not being transparent to them to be made known to them… I believe that, as I have been told, the investigative team has made every result of their investigation that they need to know transparent to them.”
This case was brought back into the limelight after the US firm held a press conference and accused Ghana Police hierarchy of corruption in the case. Conspirators, led by an interdicted East Legon Police Commander, reportedly seized 13 gold bars from the firm under the pretext that the firm was allegedly buying stolen gold.
So far, the then-East Legon Police Commander, DSP Emmanuel Basintale and 6 others, have been interdicted
Dispute over purity of gold
Key points in these developments are a dispute over whether the gold was pure or fake.
The Police Service has said the gold in its possession from the deal gone bad is fake, but this runs contrary to claims by the Green Global Resources, which has said it used its own technical gold testing equipment and “were very convinced of the quality of the gold.”
DSP Buckman has however maintained that the East Legon police, “took possession of some gold which police investigations at the headquarters later showed was not pure gold… The police service is not holding on to any gold belonging to either the petitioners or whoever is involved in it.”
According to her, the substantive case at hand has to do with the conduct of police officers interdicted. She explained that the firm petitioned the IGP that “they had been defrauded, yet the police had arrested and charged them with dishonestly receiving stolen gold. On that basis, police proceeded on investigations and realized that there was no basis for that charge at all because the substance believed to be the gold for which they were put before court turned out not to be gold so they were discharged.”
This incident happened in November 2017.