Fact-Check: Did Ghana Police Intercept Multi-million Naira Meant to Purchase Weapons for Bandits? 

Fact-Check: Did Ghana Police Intercept Multi-million Naira Meant to Purchase Weapons for Bandits? 

Claim: A viral WhatsApp video claims that the Ghanian Police have intercepted millions of Naira meant to purchase weapons for Bandits

Full Text: 

The clip was accompanied by the following text: 

“ Naira intercepted by Ghanaian police purported to be used in purchasing weapons for bandits.  

“Millions of Nigeria Naira were transported through Seme by bandits but intercepted by Ghanaian police. What a country? Our custom personnel are only interested in chasing smugglers of rice and motor vehicles.” 

Seme Border is a settlement in Nigeria on the border with Benin, thirty minutes drive from Badagry on the coastal road between Lagos and Cotonou. Seme is a part of Badagry Division of Lagos State. With the present political division in the state, it is under Badagry -West Local council development area.

About a hundred groups of bandits with over 30,000 militants are operating in the northwest Nigeria, killing, maiming, and kidnapping innocent citizens and residents of the region.

Verification: 

PRNigeria broke the footage into image keyframes and ran a reverse image search of the images. Search result showed that the footage first appeared online about two years ago, precisely in October 2019 when a bullion van belonging to Bank of Ghana (BoG) and a fuel tanker collided resulting in the death of about three persons.

The report was carried by Ghanian media and other new website and blogs in Nigeria. 

Further investigation by PRNigeria on the Ghanian Police official website and it’s Twitter, Instagram and Facebook handle, revealed that nothing of such was reported by the Ghanian authority about intercepting Naira notes. 

Conclusion: There was absolutely no evidence to prove the claim that Ghanian authority intercepted smuggled Naira into the country. Findings by PRNigeria’s investigation reveal that the video was of an  accident involved a bullion van in Ghana in 2019. Therefore the claim that Ghana Police Intercept Multi-million Naira Meant to Purchase Weapons for Bandits is FALSE.