Arms Running Racket Exposed!

The Crusading Guide?s mission of consolidating Ghana?s democracy and fighting to expose all undesirable elements whose actions could lead to the possible destabilization of the country under/or undermining of her international image has intensified.

Investigations by the paper have established that Geogiey Tykhonov Seigiy Tykhonove, and Yuri Shelkov, two Ukranians and a Russian who belong to an international arms cartel, are using Ghana?s name illegally to sell arsenals of arms made superfluous by post-cold war political developments in the countries.

Some of these loose arms from Russia and Ukraine are believed to have been sold to some African countries such as Sudan, Liberia and Cote d?Ivoire. The three men operate overtly under the banner of Yuri-M, a Plastic Company in Accra in which they own 60% shares ? in the guise of doing genuine business in Ghana.

The three, together with one Seshie Herman, a Ghanaian collaborator, our investigations revealed, took advantage of Ghana?s good reputation in anti-arms trafficking and forged the letterheads of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Ministries and faked the signature of the Defence Minister, Dr. Addo Kufuor to prepare a document the Ghana Armed Forces Defence Intelligent Unit refers to as ?A FICTITIOUS END USER CERTIFICATE? to sells arms to Pakistan.

The fraudulent use of Ghana?s National Coat of Arms helped hem to successfully sell the arms to a group of Pakistan. The arms were transported directly from Russia and Ukraine and delivered to Pakistan with documents indicating they were from Ghana.

Part of the money, our source revealed, was paid to them through a Ghanaian bank after the deal. Later, the money was cleared and transferred to an international bank in Ukraine called THE CITIBANK OF UKRAINE.

Names of the Ghanaian and Ukrainian banks have already been relayed to the National Security Outfit by the Crusading Guide.

While their wanton activities were being closely monitored, the dubious foreign businessmen might have had some premonition of what was going o happen to them and so bolted away. They returned later when they felt the terrain had become safe.

Already, a combined tem of The Crusading Guide, the Defence Intelligence Unit of the Ghana Armed Forces, the National Security Council and the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) had made some giant strides as far as the case was concerned.

The three foreigners also used a company in Ukraine called State Company for Export and Import of Military and Special Products and Services (?Ukrspetsexport? Ukraine Kiev), hose director is called Mr. V.N Shmarov, to distribute arms and military equipment illegally to some countries.

They executed their arms deal under the cover of another registered company in Ghana, LIFE AND TECHNOLOGIES GHANA LTD.

Before they could execute the deal they wrote a letter (dated 5th January 2002), appointing themselves to the positions of Financial and Commercial Directors. This then cleared the way for them to lead in any transaction between Life and Technologies Ltd., and any other company.

Seshie Herman who our source intimated, had always presented himself as a strong NPP member close to the President, allegedly collaborated with the three foreigners and looked for a printing house in Accra (name withheld for national security reasons) for the printing of fake letterheads. Our source, a principal witness to the transaction, indicated that the printing was done by an individual in the printing house in the night. A young man (name withheld) was allegedly sent to bring someone to prepare the fake stamp.

The person met Herman Seshie and delivered the stamp to him at his previous office within the premises of Pointer Ltd near Awudome cemetery. A letterhead and another ?End User Certificate? for another country was given to a lady who typed the letter for the three foreigners (END USER CERTIFICATE). The lady had already been introduced to the Security Agencies by the Crusading Guide. She admitted before officials of Defence Intelligence that she typed that letter and that she was only carrying out orders. She said she could not have known that it was meant for an illegal arms sale.

The principal witness who saw the action from beginning to end had also been sent to the Security Agencies. He had so far been very cooperative with this paper and Defence Intelligence.

All the people mentioned denied ever having been to Pakistan. Interestingly, our investigations led us to a particular secretary (name withheld for now) who when the foreigners were executing the deal together with Seshie Herman, performed some secretarial duties.

The Crusading Guide reporter urged her to find the number which she usually dialed to Pakistan in those days. After a careful search, she finally handed over a number 00925515566011.

When the number was relayed to a Pakistani journalist, Adeel Pathan Mohammed who is a friend of the Crusading Guide to investigate its sources, it ended up being a 5 star hotel. Ghana Telecom sources had already spotted that hotel?s number several times on the number 021-225059 belonging to Seshie Herman, Adeel Pathan Mohammed reported that the hotel called Pearl Continental Hotel, is in Ruwalpindi, a city joined to the Federal Capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. He indicated that he interacted with the receptionist, Shariq of the hotel.

The hotel serves the huge influx of foreign and local travelers and is Ruwalpindi?s only deluxe hotel, five minutes drive from the airport. It has a Tandoori, designed like a village which offers a variety of traditional dishes.

Pakistan is a hot market for arms. The country alone posses 18 million illegally held weapons in Islamabad. The Musharraf Government launched a countrywide anti-arms deal in a bid to seize unauthorized arms within the country. The world?s biggest weapon trafficking network is owned by Victor Bout, a Russian and a former Soviet Military Officer. It is likely that the Russian and to Ukrainians had used Ghana?s name in other illegal arms transactions.

For the past one-and-half months, this paper had been working closely with the Defence Intelligence of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in the course of investigating the above story. These same foreigners as revealed in previous publications of this, had evaded tax totaling ?14bn publications which subsequently attracted the attention of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which proceeded to initiate investigations in collaboration with The Crusading Guide.