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Notorious foreign criminals who used Ghana as a hideout

According to many experts, the country is gradually gaining notoriety for being the hideout for criminals and laundered money much like the United Kingdom.

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There has been growing concern about Ghana becoming a hideout for foreigners who commit crime in their own countries. According to many experts, the country is gradually gaining notoriety for being the hideout for criminals and laundered money much like the United Kingdom.

This comes after it was revealed that a Nigerian man who made millions from kidnapping and ransoms had significant investments in Ghana.

The revelation was made by Ibrahim Kpotun, Nigeria's Inspector General of Police (IGP) at a meeting of security chiefs in West Africa at the Kempinski Hotel in Accra.

Chikwudubem Onwuamadike alias Evans was arrested in Nigeria earlier this month. According to the authorities over there, he was the kingpin of a kidnapping syndicate behind the capturing of many individuals.

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The kidnappers requested for ransoms running into millions of cedis before their victims are released to their families. According to local media, he charges as much as 1 million dollars as ransom, which is approximately 4 million cedis.

According to Nigeria's IGP, Chikwudubem Onwuamadike's family members live in Ghana and that he even owns two houses in Accra. Kpotun also revealed that Evans also holds a Ghanaian passport.

Aside, Chikwudubem Onwuamadike, there have been a number of criminals who have used Ghana as their sanctuary.

In a separate incident, a 23 year old man of Nigerian origin tried to bomb a US bound plane on Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried but failed to detonate explosives on a plane that was destined for the US city of Detroit after it had transited at Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria. However, before he tried that deadly action, he had been in Ghana for a while where a few days earlier, he had bought the airline ticket at KLM's Accra office. He paid almost 3,000 dollars in cash for his ticket.

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In December 2016, a British man, David McDermott, was sentenced to 13 years in prison by a court in the United Kingdom for drug offences. He was a member of an organised crime syndicate from Liverpool responsible for a failed smuggling operation discovered by Border Force at Tilbury Docks in May 2013, when officers seized 400kg (881Ibs) of cocaine smuggled into the country in a container of frozen Argentinian beef. He is the last of seven members of the group to be jailed. However, he was arrested in Ghana in March 2016, where had been living for many years, and extradited to the UK in May 2016. He was even married to the daughter of former Bank of Ghana Governor Henry Wampah.

Even before McDermott was arrested in Ghana, another Briton, Arthur Simpson-Kent had been arrested in the coastal town of Busua where he was hiding after killing his wife and their two sons. He stabbed his wife, the British actress Sian Blake and their sons Zachary, eight, and Anon, four. He run to Ghana where some people say they saw him 'chilling' on the beach. He was later extradited to Great Britain where he was convicted to life in prison.

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