Four suspected human trafficking gang arrested

Accra, Dec. 22, GNA - Three Chinese and a Ghanaian suspected of being part of a ring trafficking Chinese women into Ghana for prostitution have been arrested and put before court.

They are a Chinese owner of an unnamed hotel, a Chinese male employee of the hotel, the suspected wife of the hotel owner and a Ghanaian man. The owner of the hotel has been granted bail while the other three have been remanded into police custody to reappear on December 29. Meanwhile, the police Anti Human Trafficking Unit has been invited to conduct joint investigations into the case.

A statement from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) on Tuesday said the Operations unit of the Service received information that a group of Chinese girls would be trafficked into Ghana through the Aflao border post for prostitution in a hotel in Tema.

It said the information was that the girls would be flown into Lome, Togo, from China and transported to Ghana because it was difficult to obtain Ghanaian visas from the Ghana Embassy in China.

The Aflao border post was alerted and on December 18 at about 1700 hours, the GIS officers reported that a group of seven Chinese ladies accompanied by a Chinese man had entered the country. While the ladies had visas obtained from the Ghana Embassy in Togo, the man had a multiple visa issued in Abidjan and they were met on arrival by a Ghanaian.

The report said the group gave their contact address as a Hotel in Tema and all but one claimed they were students and they were going to perform at the inauguration of the hotel.

The statement said they were, therefore, intercepted and escorted to the GIS headquarters for further examination and investigation. GIS said information obtained from the initial interview combined with the earlier information provided gave reasonable grounds to suspect a case of intent to commit an offence of human trafficking.

It said none of the Chinese speaks English and so could provide no information but the Ghanaian claimed that he was a business partner of the owner of the Hotel in Tema, who had sent him to meet them in connection with the inauguration of the hotel.

Based on this, the owner of the Hotel was invited to the headquarters on Saturday, 19th December, 2009 to assist in investigations. He admitted knowing the group and that they were coming to him. He further stated that the male in the group was his business partner and had contacted him about employing the ladies, which he had agreed to as he owned a hotel.

On the acquisition of the visas, he stated that the male in the group had contacted a friend, who owned a restaurant in Lome, and had advised that the girls should be flown to Lome where it was easy to obtain a Ghanaian visa. "It was suspected, therefore, that the owner of the Hotel, the Chinese male in the group and the Ghanaian, were acting together to traffic the girls into Ghana for purposes of prostitution. "They were, therefore, arrested and detained for suspected intent to commit human trafficking," the GIS statement indicated.

It further said one of the ladies was supposed to be the wife of the owner of the hotel, who came from the same town as the other ladies and it appeared that she might be part of the trafficking ring.

The GIS noted that all the ladies originated from Fujian and were between 20 and 33 years, which fell within the range of trafficked women. It added that all the ladies as per their travel records in their passports, flew into Togo from China and there appeared to be human trafficking ring operating between China and West Africa with the owner of the Beijing restaurant in Lome suspected to be part of the ring. 22 Dec. 09