18 arrested at airport

The Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) has arrested 18 persons for carrying out currency black market activities at the Kotoka International Airport.

The arrests followed several warnings from CEPS for them to stop their operations, which Mr S. A. Ashiagbor, Deputy Commissioner in-Charge of Special Duties, said cast a slur on the integrity of CEPS and put the image of the airport into disrepute.

He told reporters in Accra on Tuesday that a black market had operated at the airport for several years, but the Police, who have a station some five minutes walk away, "have never bothered to arrest and prosecute them.

"This no doubt gives them the encouragement to pursue these illegal transactions." Mr Ashiagbor told the Ghana News Agency when the black market operators were paraded at the CEPS headquarters that they would take the details of the 18 persons and then hand them over to the Police.

Various foreign currencies in addition to cedis valued at more than 80 million cedis were found on them. Speaking in Hausa and English, Mr Ashiagbor told them to dismantle a makeshift mosque in the area and ensure that religion was not used as a front to undertake illegal business operations.

Those arrested were Fuseini Dauda, Dauda Hassan, Abubakari Issaka, Illia Haruna, Hasmi Yunusah, Tandi Kasa and Adamu Dani. The others were Dauda Awudu, Issah Alhassan, Bukari Musah, Ali Adamu Seidu Yahaya, Kadri Musah and Karimu Tafah.

The rest are Musah Hamidu, Zakari Braimah, Amidu Zadri and Hasmi Shidor. Sources at the airport police station told the GNA that several efforts had been made to arrest them but they always came back after a few days. Genuine money market operators, such as forex bureau operators and other financial houses, accused black marketers of doing a great disservice to the nation's financial system.