The victims, Lauren Patricia Catherine Tilley, 19, and Bailey Jordan Chitty, 20, students at the Kumasi Technical University were abducted on June 4, 2019, in Kumasi while returning to their hostel from a programme.
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Police reveals how they got information leading to the arrest of the Canadian girls' kidnappers
The Ghana Police Service has given reasons what led to the arrest of the two Canadian girls kidnappers at Kumasi in the Ashanti region.
ACP David Eklu, Director-General of the Police Public Affairs
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The kidnapped Canadian girls in Kumasi were rescued on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 by the National security operatives.
A statement signed by the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah said "National Security operatives in the early hours of Wednesday 12 June, 2019, completed an operation which successfully rescued the 2 Canadian women recently abducted in the Ashanti Region."
Reports suggested that the police administration speedily investigated the case because the Canadians were foreigners and their kidnapping had international implications for Ghana after the government of Canada's travel information guide warned its citizens about travelling to Ghana.
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The public also suggested that the police have been slow in rescuing the three Takoradi missing girls.
But the Director General of Police Public Affairs Unit, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), David Eklu giving reasons how the Canadian suspects were arrested disagreed with the public and said the two scenarios were not the same.
He said the police had reliable information that led to the rescue of the two Canadians but that cannot be said to the missing Takoradi girls.
ACP Eklu in an interview on Radio Ghana said: "we made an arrest [in the Takoradi case] but unfortunately that arrest did not lead to the rescue of the three girls.
"In this case in Kumasi [Canadians kidnap], they [kidnappers and victims] had not gone outside the jurisdiction of Kumasi but in Takoradi, we believe that they [girls] are not even within the jurisdiction of Ghana."
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He stated that "The second point was that we had very good information on the Kumasi case and we moved in on it quickly because they were four in the car, the [Uber] driver who was taking them to their hostel, the two ladies and one other person, one other lady escaped, so they quickly came to give us the report and they were able to give us some basic information that helped us, and the community, we also had very reliable informants, who also gave us information that led to the swoop."
Nine suspects were arrested after the police rescued the girls at a hideout in Kumasi.
Reports indicate that the three (3) of the suspects are Nigerians while the other six (6) were identified as Ghanaians.
ACP Eklu stated that "The nature of this operation, we’d have wished that this information did not come out at this stage, it is true we have made an arrest but we still have a lot of work to do that is why we are cautiously optimistic, that we have made this arrest.
"We are cautious about that, one person has been arrested and the one who is serving sentence for escaping from lawful custody was all along mentioning his name so we got him arrested, he was not arrested in Togo, he was arrested within Ghana and he is in custody now."
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