I have been paying ‘chop money’ to the police – Wanted Axim galamsey gang leader

Kwame Ato Asare Ani, a man on the run from the authorities, has stated from his hiding place that he used to pay some personnel of the Ghana Police Service money for their personal upkeep (chop money).

According to Kwame Ani, he is not an armed robber as previously stated in police statements, but rather a police informant who is assisting in the fight against illicit mining (galamsey) in the Axim community.

Kwame Ani claimed that because of his relationship with the police in halting the illicit mining activities in the area, he is the first person the police turns to any time they need entry to the various forests where galamsey operations are taking place.

Speaking in an interview with Peace FM’s Afternoon News on April 03, 2023, he added that whenever the police arrive at the location, they approach him for cash for their personal upkeep before heading into the forest for the operations.

“For the police, even if I’m not around, they will come and wait for me before I will take them to the bush, in a day, about 10 to 5 police officers come to my place and I take them to the bush. I always go and survey around before the police come in. Sometimes I’m the one who even arrests some of them (galamsey operators) for the police because the police cannot arrest them.

“The police once came to the site; at that time, I was in Tarkwa and my boys called me that the police have come so I have to come and meet them.

“So, when I came, truly they had come, and that was the Axim Divisional Police Command and the Sekondi patrol team.

“So, when they came, they told me that they had come for their ‘chop money’ (money for personal upkeep), so I spoke to the Takoradi team and gave them one thousand cedis and the Axim divisional command also came that their ‘chop money’ also, so I gave them eight hundred Ghana cedis, which is eight million old cedis. So, they asked me to go and show them a galamsey site which I agreed and went with them.

“For the police, they are my friends that I work with them, the work that we do is that all the galamsey sites, whenever they come there, they will come and see me before I take them around.

“I also have a site that I manage, so whenever the police come around, they call me to meet them.

Addressing the circumstance leading to his fallout with the police, Kwame Ani said he received a payment of GH¢100,000.00 from some illegal miners but failed to deliver the money to the police after he felt being cheated by the police in previous deals.

He refuted armed robbery accusations brought against him by the police as false and maintained that until the police tell the public the truth, he is not prepared to surrender for questioning unless the police come clean on their relationship with him and the accusations made against him.

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AM/SARA