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31.10.2005 Crime & Punishment

Hollywood-type robbery on Accra-Kumasi Road

31.10.2005 LISTEN
By Graphic

Four gunmen at dawn on Sunday, staged a Hollywood-type robbery on the Accra-Kumasi highway, shooting and robbing their victims of money and valuables.

A counter-move by a police patrol team resulted in the arrest of two of the suspected robbers with two of them on the run.

The four suspected robbers, with their weapons well concealed, boarded a 60-seater Neoplan bus with registration number GT 7908W disguising themselves as genuine passengers travelling from Accra to Kumasi.

At Bereku near Asankare in the Asante Akyem South District at about 2:30 a.m., one of the suspects broke the dawn silence with a scream: “We are out of coverage area with respect to mobile phones”.

One of his colleagues responded with a gunshot directed at the driver of the bus, but the bullet missed the driver narrowly.

In the midst of the confusion the driver of the bus managed to stop and the robbers immediately came out of the vehicle and with their guns pointing at the passengers, ordered them to surrender all their monies and other valuables.

Chief Superintendent Theodore Gawe, Commander of the Konongo Divisional Police, whose patrol team mounted the counter-offensive, said his men were patrolling around Bomfa when they got wind of the attack and quickly rushed to the scene.

There, Mr Gawe said,the patrol team met some of the victims as well as the bus driver and questioned them.He said after interacting with the victims, the police patrol team decided to comb the area during which they spotted two members of the gang.

He stated that the police also fired at the suspects and after a fierce gun battle, the suspects bolted into the bush,leaving behind five fully loaded locally manufactured pistols, 20 cartridges and a short double-barrelled gun.

Chief Superintendent Gawe said the patrol team pursued them and arrested two of them,who were later identified as Kojo Mireku alias Rasta,and William Ofori,both believed to be in their early 20's.

The two others managed to escape.He said when the two suspects were arrested,an undisclosed amount of money was found on them.

He added that the suspected robbers had since been identified by some of the passengers on board the bus and that the matter was being investigated by the police.

After preliminary investigations were concluded,the bus was released at 2.30 p.m. yesterday — after nearly 12 hours — to continue the rest of the journey to Kumasi with the rest of the passengers on board.

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