Court hears case of stolen GH₵31.9m worth of gold

A Burkinabe and two others have been hauled before the Accra Circuit Court for stealing 100 kilograms of gold valued at $5.8 million.

The trio, Seth Owusu, Richard Pafadam and Abubakar Sadick, in July, this year, stole the gold equivalent to GH₵31,900,000.00, property belonging to a businessman.

The businessman, Turkson Raymond Kobina who is the complainant in this case, according to the prosecution, had kept the gold in his house, with the knowledge of one of the accused persons.

The businessman woke up on July 26, this year, and realised Abubakar Sadick, one of the accused persons had left the house to an unknown destination.

The facts of the case presented by police prosecutor Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Slyvester Asare were that Abubakar Sadick (A3), now at large, is an employee of the complainant and resides in the complainants house.

The second accused person (A2) is a Burkinabe, whilst the first accused person (A1) resides in Gbawe, Accra.

According to the prosecution, “in July, 2020, the complainant in the company of A3 took delivery of 100kg of gold in one of the rooms in complainant’s house with the knowledge of A3.”

But on July 26, this year, A3 without the knowledge of the complainant left home to an unknown destination.

ASP Asare said shortly after the complainant detected the missing 100kg of gold valued at $5.8 million equivalent to GH₵31,900,000.00 kept in the room.

ALSO READ: When I woke up, all my gold was gone.

The matter was subsequently reported to the police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) for further investigations.

Several calls made to the first accused person went on answered.

“Thus, some gold refineries were alerted or informed that A2 was spotted at a refinery with the gold belonging to the complainant. Thus, A2 was arrested and during interrogations admitted the offence,” the prosecution said.

According to the prosecution, upon further investigation A2 mentioned A1 and A3 as his accomplices.

The second accused person then led the police to arrest Seth Owusu.

“Upon investigation, it held that A1 led A2 to ITALTEC Ghana Limited, a gold dealer to sell the 100kg of gold stole from the complainant,” as contained in the facts.

The second accused person admitted the offence and led Police to arrest A3, “his Ghanaian friend and added that he led him to ITALEC Ghana Limited with the 100kg of gold he and A1 stole from the complainant.”

Prosecution said it was further established that the accused persons successfully caused 5kg out of the 100 of gold to be shipped to Dubai by ITALTEC Ghana Limited.

Further investigation led to the retrieval of the remaining 95kg of gold from ITALTEC Ghana Limited.

That value of the 5kg of gold shipped by the accused persons to Dubai is valued at $290,000 equivalent to GH₵1,595,00.00.

Meanwhile, the first and second accused person have been granted GH₵1.6 million bail with two sureties each.

The two should have one common surety earning not less than GH₵1,000.

Attempts are also being made to trace the whereabouts of the third accused person.

The case is set to continue on October 7, this year.