SFO Most Wanted Suspect Nabbed

A former employee of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Raphael Baffour Awuah, whom the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had been hunting since 2003, has been finally arrested by the Sunyani police, when he accompanied his wife, Janet Addai, aka Fati Yahaya, to court to testify in a fraud case between a Mim businessman, Desmond Charmant, and his wife, Georgina Addai.

But, within the twinkle of an eye, Baffour Awuah vanished into thin air, when he was sent to the police headquarters in Sunyani.

By the time journalists got to the police headquarters, having had the information, the arresting officers (police) said they had finished their work by arresting him and therefore had handed him over to the Brong Regional Crime Officer, Mr. John Owusu, for further action.

Surprisingly, when the crime officer was contacted, he told journalists that he had not received anybody like the suspect, and therefore had no information for the media.

One of the police officers (name withheld) that effected the arrest, revealed that they had had a telephone call from one Roy Agbleze of the SFO to arrest Mr. Awuah, because he was being wanted by the SFO for embezzlement.

The police officer said because they did not have details of the offence of Mr. Awuah, they could not put him in the cells but took his particulars and granted him police inquiry bail.

The Chronicle later gathered that Mr. Awuah was asked to report to the police on Tuesday, March 22.

Readers would recall that on March 4, this year, The Chronicle reported in its center spread that the most wanted man on the SFO list had resurfaced in Sunyani.

Mr. Awuah, according to The Chronicle's intelligence information, embezzled ?3 billion belonging to his former employees.

During his interrogation, Mr. Awuah managed to escape and fled to London, but was deported to the country by the British Immigration.

Immediately after the publication of The Chronicle story, someone rang this reporter from Tema, alleging that Mr. Awuah was hiding at Nyinahin in the Atwima District of Ashanti Region.

Last Friday, Mr. Awuah accompanied his wife Fati Yahaya, to the court at Sunyani, boasting that The Chronicle's publication was a fabricated one, therefore he had made himself public for the whole world to see that he was not a wanted man.

Within the shortest possible time, he was picked up by the police and dragged to the police headquarters.

Meanwhile, the case in which Fati Yahaya appeared as witness to Desmond Charmant, who accuses his wife of defrauding her of ?979 million, was adjourned to March 14 and 15, this year.