Lebanese Dollar Smuggling Syndicate Busted

The monies retrieved from the car tyre 

Four Lebanese are in the grips of the police after they allegedly attempted to smuggle thousands of US dollars back to their homeland without paying any tax on them.

The four were arrested upon a tip-off from police informants in Asokwa in the Ashanti Region when they tried to smuggle bundles of dollars in a car tyre.

Intelligence officers were therefore dispatched to Kumasi to effect their arrest.

DAILY GUIDE has learnt that the activities of such miscreants have caused the recent rapid depreciation of the cedi against major currencies.

The four suspects, whose names are yet to be given out by the police, could be seen in a video which has gone viral on social media, stashing the cash in vehicle tyres with the rim still in place ostensibly to smuggle the money and avoid paying any tax to Ghanaian authorities.

Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the suspects were going to ship the cash to their partners in Lebanon who would then retrieve the money on the blind side of Ghanaian and Lebanese authorities.

The suspects
The suspects are currently in police custody assisting in investigations.

They were initially detained at Asokwa Police Station before they were later transferred to Accra.

The arrest comes at a time when authorities have expressed concern about how some foreign firms operate in the country with little or no respect for the local tax laws.

The Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC) and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) have, in recent times, announced measures to monitor the operations of foreign firms in the country.

The measure is to cure the status quo where many foreign firms change ownership, and at times their operating names after five years of operation in Ghana.

These measures, if implemented, are to ensure that the country's tax law is respected, especially by foreign firms which find dubious ways of avoiding tax payment after their tax holidays expire.