Some residents of the Upper East region have announced plans to lodge a joint petition with Ghana’s parliament and presidency against former National Security minister, Albert Kan-Dapaah, and some top officials of the ministry in demand for the whereabouts of some 21 bars of refined gold confiscated at the Kotoka International Airport on Tuesday, 1 June 2021.
Officials from the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) impounded the bars from three employees of Shaanxi Mining Ghana Limited, a Chinese company now called Earl International Group (Ghana) Gold Limited, upon a tipoff from the managing director of Yenyeya Mining Company Limited, Charles Taleog Ndanbon.
The three employees— Rayn Lee, a Chinese; Goa, a Chinese; and Michael Atta, a Ghanaian—journeyed with the gold bullion from Talensi, a district in the Upper East region, through the Tamale International Airport (now called Yakubu Tali International Airport) to Accra. They were detained by the National Security Secretariat (NSS) after their arrests.
The three men were arrested because the Chinese company was suspected to have illegally obtained the gold ingots from Ndanbon’s concession in Talensi with a plan to smuggle them to China through Dubai.
The company, in self-defence, claimed the gold bricks were only transported from Talensi to Accra for sale to sustain its operations.
But the whereabouts of the gold bars, valued at about $6 million and 83kg in weight at the time Kan-Dapaah was in charge of Ghana’s homeland security, have remained unknown to the public to this day.
Failed efforts
While state security agencies were investigating the matter, Ndanbon’s lawyers from the Boakye Agyen Chambers tried multiple times through official communications to locate the gold bars on their client’s behalf.
Their efforts did not yield any results.
In one of the letters sighted by this media outlet, the lawyers officially requested an update on some investigations the NIB initiated after the seizure of the gold bars and the arrests of the Shaanxi employees.
“Following the arrest of these three Shaanxi officials, our client made an official complaint to the National [Intelligence] Bureau for thorough investigations into the circumstances of the 21 bars of gold.
“Our client has instructed us that since he made the complaint in June of 2021 there has been [no] communication whatsoever from the NIB regarding the status of the investigations. Consequently, our client has us to write this letter to enquire about the status of the investigations which we hereby do,” said the lawyers in a letter written on Friday, 22 April 2022.
They also stated: “Our client wishes to assure the NIB of its readiness to assist the investigations and to provide any further details that may be needed in order to bring finality to this matter.”
The bureau replied to the request, stating that it completed the investigations and submitted a report to the Ministry of National Security.
“You may, therefore, redirect your request accordingly,” the NIB told the lawyers in a letter dated 17th June, 2022.
On Thursday, 7 July 2022, the lawyers also wrote to the Ministry of National Security, demanding the whereabouts of the gold bars among some other matters relating to the “conduct” of the Chinese company in Talensi.
Media Without Borders learnt the ministry never replied to the requests made by the Boakye Agyen Chambers.
“Our petition is not accusing him (Kan-Dapaah) of misappropriating the twenty-one gold bars,” said a member of the group, Felix Anangura.
“But the silence of his ministry on the missing 21 bars of gold from 2021 to 2025 speaks volumes. That is about four years. Twenty-one bars of gold worth six million dollars cannot get missing just like that.”
Another member of the group, Razak Baba Ibrahim, added his voice: “The Mahama administration must show interest in this. That is why we are marching to the Parliament and the Office of the President with a petition on this matter not against Kan-Dapaah alone but also against other big shots who were at the Ministry of National Security at the time.”
The former national security minister did not respond to a request made by this media outlet on Friday, 16 May 2025, for his comment before press time.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
