Police Invade Gold Firm

Unidentified police officers and National Security operatives numbering about twenty (20), between the hours of 2:00 p.m., and 5:00 p.m., on Tuesday, December 11, 2018, allegedly took hostage staff of FA & Co Resource Limited and Wise Mining Limited at Adabraka, a suburb in Accra, on suspicion that the Managing Director of Wise Mining Limited, Isaac Offei Atta, was involved in fraudulent gold dealings and transactions.

According to a business associate of the Managing Director of Wise Mining Limited, Yaw Bonsu, who was among the persons detained for three hours at their own office, after they had returned from Access Bank in Tema where they cleared a cheque issued to them by their client, Vincent Sackey, for GHC473,520.00 meant for the purchase of two (2) kilos of gold, the police officers and the National Security operatives invaded their office and demanded that they release the money they just cleared from the bank.

The monies, he said, was in a security safe and it was going to be difficult to get access to it. The officers committed to the mission, called the fire service to the scene.

Not long after their call, he said, a fire service tender arrived at the scene.

The fire service personnel who arrived at the scene, he indicated, reportedly used generator powered chain saw to rip the security safe opened and took the money.

He added that the officers who carried out the operation made them write an undertaking to show that they had taken custody of the specific amount of GHC 473,520.00.

However, he said, they refused to leave a copy of the undertaking for those from whom they took the money.

The operatives, according to Mr. Bonsu, also wrote their names and took with them all their mobile phones numbering about ten (10) which belonged to the individuals who were present during what he described as an unlawful invasion of their private office and property.

He said, the police officers also reportedly took custody of the Managing Director of Wise Mining Limited, Isaac Offei Atta, and another, who have since not been tracked after they lodged a complaint at the Adabraka Divisional Police Command, the Greater Accra Region Police and the National Police headquarters as well as the offices of the National Security and Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Managing Director of “Helvent Investment Limited,” Vincent Sackey, the gold buyer whose money was forcefully taken away from his supplier, indicated in an interview after the raid that he was shocked, shaken and taken aback by the turn of events over one of the lowest transactions in terms of figures that he had ever made.

He called on the top hierarchy of the security agencies, the police and the National Security to get to the bottom of this matter and return his suppliers, the genuine money he paid for the supply of two kilos of gold.