A United States Army Major, Kojo Owusu Dartey, has been found guilty of smuggling firearms to Ghana.
Major Dartey concealed the firearms in blue barrels containing rice and other household goods.
He was busted through a collaboration between US officials and Ghanaian security agencies.
The Major, assigned to Fort Liberty, was tried on charges of dealing in firearms without a license, delivering firearms without notice to the carrier, smuggling goods from the United States, illegally exporting firearms without a license, making false statements to an agency of the United States, making false declarations before the court, and conspiracy.
According to the United States Attorney General’s Office, Major Dartey, 42, faces up to 240 months behind bars when his sentence is pronounced in July 2024.
Court records and evidence presented at trial show that between June 28 and July 2, 2021, Dartey purchased seven firearms in the Fort Liberty area and tasked a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to purchase three firearms there and send them to him in North Carolina.
Dartey then hid all the firearms, including multiple handguns, an AR15, 50-round magazines, suppressors, and a combat shotgun inside blue barrels underneath rice and household goods and smuggled the barrels out of the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, on a container ship to the Port of Tema in Ghana.
The GRA recovered the firearms and reported the seizure to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attaché in Ghana and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Baltimore Field Division.
The document added that was also a witness in a case involving a 16-defendant marriage fraud scheme.
The scheme reported by Dartey was between soldiers of Fort Liberty and some Ghanaian nationals.
However, in preparation for the trial, Dartey lied to federal law enforcement about his sexual relationship with a defense witness and lied under oath about the relationship.
Speaking on the conviction, Toni M. Crosby, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF Baltimore Field Division said “Far from being a victimless crime, firearms trafficking threatens public safety across our nation and beyond”.
He added that this investigation has kept firearms off the streets and prevented them from being used.
Meanwhile, US Attorney Michael Easley expressed gratitude to the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the International Cooperation Unit Office of the Attorney-General of Ghana for their assistance in the investigation.