Editorial: Police Must Probe Deeper Into Adabraka Armed Robbery Incident

Owners of Cabest Jewellery, the jewellery shop at Adabraka, a suburb of Accra, where a robbery incident took place on Saturday, November 2, 2024 have, according to ghanaweb.com, given details of the robbery incident.

According to the online portal, one of the owners of Cabest Jewellery, Clement Amos Baffour, said that the robbers attacked one of their gold suppliers. The story continued that as the supplier was leaving the shop after selling raw gold to them (jewellery shop), the robbers crossed him and took all the money from the transaction.

“I was not here when the incident happened. I was leaving home for the shop when one of my workers called to inform me that the armed robbers were here again. They attacked one of the customers who came to sell an item to us and was leaving in his car. They crossed him, blasted his car tyre and asked him to get down and open the boot of the car, and they took all the money we gave to him.

“It was the money we gave to the customer that they stole. They did not go into the shop. We gave him around GHc6.2 million. We are going to sit with the customer to see how we are going to resolve the issue. Some of the money also belongs to other people,” Baffour was quoted as saying in Twi.

“The police are investigating the matter, they came here for information and they are still chasing the robbers. I’m also pleading with any person who has information to help us,” he further stated and added that in all, the robbers stole around GHc7.5 million from the victim.

“I’m partners with Mr Baffour. We paid him and when he was leaving, he was attacked. The amount robbed was more than GHc6.2 million. What we paid him was more than GHc6.2 million. He had gone somewhere for some more, so in all, the money was around GH¢7.5 million.”

The ghanaweb.com story also stated that this is the second time in less than 3 months that the same shop has been robbed. From the above narration, it is clear that the money has indeed been stolen. Though we sympathise with the owner of the stolen money, it still baffles us why the former decided to accept physical cash payment after selling the gold to Cabest Jewellery, instead of cheque payment.

Do we assume that the transaction that went on was not legal? If it was legal why did they decide to bypass the banking system by accepting physical cash without taking cognisance of the associated risk?

Though The Chronicle admits that accepting physical cash in excess of six million cedis is not illegal, no proper businessman or woman will choose that option. In the ghanaweb.com story we are referencing, Mr Baffour, a co-owner of the jewellery shop, is quoted as saying that his outfit will pay back the money the robbers stole from the gold dealer.

If this claim being attributed to Baffour by ghanaweb.com is true, why would a businessman decide to pay back such huge sums of money when his company did not commit any offence of paying physical cash to the gold dealer? In our opinion, the state security agencies must delve deeper into the case to ascertain why the huge sums of money were paid outside the banking system.

Somewhere in January 2019, myjoyonline.com quoted Corruption Watch as saying that over ¢30bn in gold left the shores of Ghana without any official knowledge.Corruption Watch had compared Bank of Ghana data of gold exported for three years – 2015, 2016 and 2017. This came to ¢67.85bn ($13.91bn).

Yet another set of data collected from just 3 countries – Switzerland, India and United Arab Emirates – that import Ghana’s gold shows they bought ¢98.32bn ($20.16bn). The difference comes to ¢30.47bn ($6.25bn) at the time.

The myjoyoneline.com story continued that the above narration meant somewhere around the globe, a group of persons made this fortune from Ghana’s resources without giving government a slice, in the form of paying taxes.

Apart from the Corruption Watch story, a senior adviser to President Akufo-Addo, Mr Yaw Osafo Maafo,had also lamented in the past about the way gold are being exported from the country without the corresponding payment of taxes to the state.

In the Adabraka armed robbery case, which is the basis for this editorial, we are not saying the Jewellery shop and the gold supplier are engaged in illegalities – No!, far from that. Our concerns as we have repeatedly stated, is the payment of the money outside the banking system.

Per the story, this is not the first time that the Cabest Jewellery had been attacked and that a similar incident happened three months earlier. This incident alone should have prompted both the buyer and the supplier to avoid physical payment, but this was not done. As to whether the decision was taken with good intensions, only the probe we are calling for will prove that or otherwise.

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