By Emmanuel Bruce
(Reuters) -Three Indian nationals have been arrested in Ghana on suspicion of operating a gold smuggling syndicate that authorities believe has been taking tons of the precious metal out of the country for over a decade, the West African country’s gold trading regulator said on Tuesday.
The three pleaded guilty at their arraignment and will remain in custody until a court hearing scheduled for May 12, a spokesperson for the regulator GoldBod said.
Ghana and some other African countries have been losing billions of dollars’ worth of gold every year due to smuggling.
The country established a new government body known as GoldBod in March to streamline gold purchases from small-scale miners, increase their earnings and reduce the impact of smuggling. Under the new system, foreign companies can only get the precious metal from GoldBod.
The regulator said on X that the suspects – aged 35, 22 and 42 – were apprehended at their residence in Ghana’s southern city of Kumasi, which investigators say had been converted into an unauthorised gold trading centre.
GoldBod also said they were in possession of 1.9 million cedis ($134,000), 4,500 rupees ($53), 4.363 kilograms of gold, two counting machines, a CCTV recorder and an Indian passport.
The regulator said the suspects had not provided GoldBod with residence permits, work authorisations or tax payment records related to their business activities.
“Much of the smuggled gold is exported to India, China and the United Arab Emirates and we lose,” GoldBod spokesperson Prince Kwame Minkah told Reuters.
($1 = 14.1500 Ghanian cedi, 85.1270 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Emmanuel Bruce; Editing by Maxwell Akalaare Adombila, Anait Miridzhanian and Hugh Lawson)
