A US Army Major faces up to 240 months in prison for smuggling firearms into Ghana disguised as rice and household products. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina said that Kojo Owusu Dartey, 42, was found guilty of trading in guns without a license, delivering firearms without notification to the carrier, and smuggling commodities from the United States.
Dartey, presently assigned to Fort Liberty, was found guilty of illegally exporting firearms without a license, making false representations to a US agency, making false declarations in court, and conspiring.
Court records show that Dartey purchased guns between June 28 and July 2, 2021. He allegedly purchased seven firearms in the Fort Liberty region and had a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, acquire three additional firearms and send them to him in North Carolina.
According to the statement, the firearms comprised numerous handguns, an AR15, 50-round magazines, suppressors, and a battle shotgun. The weapons were hidden “inside blue barrels underneath rice and household goods.”
Dartey then “smuggled the barrels out of the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, on a container ship to the Port of Tema, Ghana,” according to the statement. “The Ghana Revenue Authority recovered the firearms and reported the seizure to the DEA attaché in Ghana and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Baltimore Field Division.”
According to the statement, the 42-year-old also served as a witness in the U.S. v. Agyapong trial. “A case that involved a 16-defendant marriage fraud scheme between soldiers on Fort Liberty and foreign nationals from Ghana that Dartey had tipped off officials to,” the press release went on to say.
“In preparation for the trial, Dartey lied to federal law enforcement about his sexual relationship with a defense witness and lied on the stand and under oath about the relationship.”
Dartey’s sentencing date is scheduled on July 23. “We are partnering with law enforcement agencies across the globe to expose international criminals – from money launderers to rogue international arms traffickers capable of fueling violence abroad,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“Through a partnership with Ghanaian officials, this rogue Army Major was convicted at trial after smuggling guns to Ghana in blue barrels of rice and household goods.”