Police Arrest  Leader of 14 CCTV Camera  Thieves

A Police patrol team has arrested the ring leader of the fourteen (14) thugs who stole five closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed on a site to monitor the ongoing construction of a factory project on a legally acquired and registered land at Bamma-Ayikai Doblo community in the Ga West Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.

The police team on the dawn of Saturday, May 29, 2021, around 12:00 a.m, effected the arrest of Mr James Laryea Ashia, a member of the Nii Adama Pataku Family in Ayikai Doblo Bamma in Accra and handed over him to the Accra Regional Police Command for processing before the law court.

Mr Ashia, a resident of Hong Kong near Kwashieman in Accra, according to the police with the Criminal Investigative Department (CID) of the Accra Regional Police Command, was arrested in his hideout at Kasoa in the Central Region, following a tip-off.

For the past two weeks, the police have mounted a serious search for the 14 thugs, including two armed soldiers, who committed that criminal act on Wednesday, May 18, 2021.

The hunt for the suspects by the police, followed an official report lodged with CID headquarters by the owner of the factory project, Mr Bless Dosoo, on Wednesday, May 18, 2021, that around 9:00 a.m., this day, some gun-wielding thugs, numbering about 14, stormed the site and took way the five CCTV cameras installed. 

But luck, however, eluded Mr Ashia who was arrested in his hiding place at Kasoa and brought to the Accra Regional Police Command.

A police investigator with the CID of the Accra Regional Police Command who pleaded anonymity confirmed the arrest of Mr Ashia and stated that everything was under control for justice to prevail in the case.

According to information available to Soireenews.com, the thugs, who committed the crime, were alleged to be Mr Ashia, a member of the Nii Adama Pataku Family in Ayikai Doblo Bamma.

The stealing of the five cameras, also known as video surveillance cameras, happened amidst the firing of warning shots by the thugs who were believed to be working for Mr Ashia.

However, a visit by this reporter to the site to ascertain the veracity of the matter confirmed that five CCTV cameras had been removed from the site with their wires totally disconnected. 

Soireenews reporter further observed that the power supply to the site had been cut ostensibly to prevent these thugs from being captured on the CCTV cameras before carrying out their nefarious operation.

Narrating the story further in an interview with the reporter, Mr Dosoo stated that around 10:00 a.m., while he was at the premises of the Lands Commission in Accra, he received distress calls from his workers that Mr Ashia had brought some gun-wielding people who gave several warning shots to threaten them and subsequently bolted away five CCTV cameras on site. 

Besides stealing the five CCTV cameras, the visibly distraught Dosoo stated in his police statement that the thugs threatened the lives of his workers.

He added that they completely stopped his workers from working on the project when they invaded the site to carry out their barbaric operation on Wednesday, May 18, 2021.

According to him, the thugs also warned and threatened his workers to stop developing the land he had genuinely and legally acquired from the elders of Ayikai-Doblo Stool and registered with the Lands Commission.

He pointed out that after "l received the strange calls, l rushed to the Police CID Headquarters to lodge an official report on the matter."

He, therefore, appealed to the police administration to ensure that the perpetrators were prosecuted.

According to Mr Dosoo, it was on record in Ayikai Doblo Bamma that "Mr Ashia is more than a terror by way of even beating police officers and individual land developers and their workers on lands in the area without recourse to the laws of the country."

"Mr Ashia is scaring land developers with guns all over the area. This is a residential area, so why would Mr Ashia be allowed to be scaring residents in the community?”

"So I think it is not proper for Mr Ashia to be allowed by National Security agencies to continue to exhibit such heinous crimes and be walking freely in the area. And the police too are entertaining that! This is very bad and dangerous," Mr Dosoo angrily stated.

  Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater Accra Regional Correspondent