Fuel Smugglers Flee After Fire Exchange

Six fuel smugglers fled last Thursday night after an exchange of gunfire with the Ketu District anti-fuel smuggling taskforce at Akpokploe, a border village near Aflao.

The smugglers, however, fled, leaving behind five icycles, a motorbike and 420 litres of fuel, which they were smuggling to Lome.

No arrests were made. A spokesman of the reconstituted Operation Hunter Anti-Fuel Smuggling Squad told the Ghana News Agency that while on patrol along the border at about 8.30 p.m., the team saw a group of people on bicycles and a motorbike with jerrycans moving towards Togo.

He said the smugglers were ordered to halt but they defied the order and fired at the team whose members also returned fire. The spokesman said the suspects fled abandoning their bicycles, motorbike and the jerrycans filled with fuel.

He warned those involved in the nation-wrecking activity to stop. Investigations conducted by the Ghana News Agency at Aflao indicated that a gallon of petrol smuggled from Ghana fetches 1,150 CFA francs in Lome, yielding a profit of 3,000 cedis on every gallon of petrol sold.

The recent fuel price increase in petroleum products in Ghana has not had any significant impact on the smuggling of petrol to Togo. This is because it is widely believed that petrol from Ghana is of better quality than the one obtained in Togo.