3 nabbed for human trafficking

Page 23: February 16, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia

THREE persons suspected to be engaged in human trafficking have been arrested.
The three, a lecturer at the Accra Polytechnic and two Lebanese brothers, are suspected to be operating two different trafficking gangs.
Ibrahim Zubairu, the lecturer at the Accra Polytechnic, is currently on court bail while Ali Hussein and his brother, Mohammed Hussein, both Lebanese, are currently in custody at the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) following their arrest on Tuesday.
Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Director of GIS, Ms Elizabeth Adjei, said two other collaborators of Zubairu, whose names she did not disclose for security reasons, were on the run.
She said the trafficking gangs usually recruited people from the Middle East, bring them to Ghana through Togo, then smuggle them to Europe or America.
She said the victims were often given fictitious travelling documents of other countries including fake visas.
Ms Adjei said in the first case involving Zubairu, the suspect brought in four Iraqis made up of two men, a lady and a child from Syria to Lome in November last year.
She said because the victims did not have the permit to enter Ghana, Zubairu and his collaborators smuggled them into Ghana through the bushes at night in December, last year.
According to her, Zubairu and his cohorts put out the lights of the car they used to bring the victims into Ghana each time they suspected that there might be human activity in those areas.
Ms Adjei said the victims were accommodated at a residence in Dzorwulu pending their departure to Europe after paying $12,500 each to the three Ghanaians.
She said the victims were later provided with fake South African passports and were scheduled to travel on December 28, but could not make it due to unknown reasons.
The director said the victims were later arrested by undercover agents of the GIS who led them to arrest Zubairu at his offices at Accra Polytechnic.
She said Zubairu was granted court bail after he was charged for attempted human trafficking.
With regards to the Hussein brothers, who operate the Phoenicia Restaurant at the Airport Residential Area, Ms Adjei said they brought in five Lebanese in January purportedly in transit to Togo via road.
She said the five Lebanese failed to show up at the Aflao Immigration Post indicating that they were still in Ghana.
As a result, she said, operatives of the Enforcement and Operations Units were alerted to look out for them.
Ms Adjei said intelligence later indicated that the five Lebanese were about to be smuggled outside the country through the Kotoka International Airport.
According to her, two of the Lebanese showed up at the KLM counter at the airport but were prevented from boarding the flight by the KLM officials on suspicion that the travelling documents were fake.
Unfortunately, she said, the KLM officials failed to notify the immigration officials to apprehend them.
Ms Adjei said the GIS later learnt that the two had slipped out of the country and that the three remaining Lebanese were to travel to Lome last Monday.
She said undercover agents of the GIS intercepted the three victims at Prampram in the Greater Accra Region last Monday.
She said the agents of the GIS arrested the Hussein brothers at dawn on Tuesday after initial investigations showed that they had brought the Lebanese into Ghana with the purpose of sending them abroad.
Ms Adjei said the GIS had intensified its immigration control and post-entry monitoring activities following global terrorists threats.
She said it had come to the attention of the GIS that some unscrupulous persons had occupied themselves with human trafficking, with people from conflict-prone areas as their targets.
She said nationals of Bangladesh, India, Iraq and Lebanon were the most targeted and indicated that the GIS would rise up to the task of dealing with the criminal gangs.
Ms Adjei said what the traffickers did was often to smuggle the victims to neighbouring West African countries, acquire Ghanaian visas for them to enter Ghana legally.
She explained that the choice of Ghana was because of the availability of flights to the preferred destination of the victims in Ghana.
Ms Adjei said the GIS had notified the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to alert the Ghana missions in the West coast to thoroughly screen visa applications from nationals from the Middle East and other areas before issuing visas to them.
She appealed to Ghanaians to be on the alert and notify the GIS of any suspicious persons within their neighbourhood, since national security was a collective responsibility.