Soldiers who robbed Gomoa quarries used Jubilee House vehicle – Police

The soldiers and civilians who allegedly robbed some quarries at Gomoa Ojobi in the Central region last week used the official vehicle of the colonel in charge of the military at the Jubilee House.

According to the Kasoa Divisional Commander ASP Innocent Agbanyo who led the operation that effected the arrests, the head of the military at the Jubilee House has confirmed that the vehicle belongs to him but denies sanctioning the operations.

“When we arrested them they said they were from the Jubilee House and they were acting on intelligence and so we got in touch with their head there. In fact, the vehicle they used belongs to the Colonel in charge of the military at the Jubilee House but he says he has no knowledge of the operation and so the matter has been handed over to the police headquarters,” ASP Agbanyo told Starrfm.com.gh Monday.

He said the matter has been taken over by the police headquarters and the civilian suspects are in custody while the military police is detaining the military suspects.

Another highly placed Police source told Starrfm.com.gh that the matter is being taken seriously by the police since the suspects claimed they were acting on behalf of the GRA.

The various state agencies they claimed to be working for have denied knowledge of the operation, the Police source said.

Background

The alleged robberies occurred at five different stone quarries, namely Executive Stone Quarry at Gomoa Ojobi, Haoxin Stone Quarry at Awutu Ofaakor, Pilot Stone Quarry at Gomoa Ojobi, F/G Stone Quarry at Awutu Bosom-Abena and others.

Vehicles used in the operations were a white Toyota Land Cruiser with registration number BA-1696-13, Black Pajaro car (No: BA 2504-14) and a Black Toyota Land Cruiser V8 (No: AS 3366-18).

The Central Regional Police Public Relations Officer, DSP/Ms. Irene Oppong, confirmed the incident and said it occurred on March 18, 2020.

She said the manager of the Executive Stone Quarry reported to the Ojobi District Police Command that four military men armed with guns in the accompany of five civilians on board two Toyota Land Cruisers and a Pajaro came to their quarry site and robbed them of a cash of GH¢ 10,000, (1) IBM laptop computer, (1) HP Laptop computer, System units, (1) Money counting machine, (1) receipt printer and (2) security camera decoders, all valued at about GH¢20,000.

DSP Oppong said a team of police personnel from Millennium City Divisional Police Command and a team from the Kasoa Divisional Police Command pursued them until eventually catching up with them at Awutu Ofaakor near Kasoa where they were arrested.

The management of the affected quarries are writing their statements at the Millennium Divisional Police Command.

An amount of GH¢27,810 was retrieved from the suspects after they had been searched.

A fortnight ago, one of the quarries was robbed and their engineers killed and a worker injured.

The Customer Relations Officer for one of the companies, HaoXin Stone Quarry at Awutu Ofaakor, Frederick Denyo, said the company lost GH¢55,000 to the robbers.