Three arrested for human trafficking

THREE Chinese, suspected to be members of a West African human trafficking ring, have been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police in Accra.
The Chinese, a man, his wife and his younger brother, were picked up at their hideout at a hotel at La in Accra for their alleged involvement in the act across the West coast of Africa.
They were arrested last Saturday, together with seven of their victims, also Chinese nationals, and are currently in police custody.
They have been identified as James Xu Jin, 41, said to be the ringleader, Chow Xiou Ying, Xu Jin’s wife, and Sam Shan Zifan, the younger brother of Xu Jin.
The Director-General of the CID, DCOP Frank Adu-Poku, who briefed the Daily Graphic yesterday on the issue, said the suspects operated a prostitution syndicate in countries including Ghana, Togo and Nigeria, with Ghana as their distribution point.
He said for some time now the Human Trafficking Unit of the CID had carried out a series of investigations and one of them led to the arrest of the suspects.
DCOP Adu-Poku said the suspects would be arraigned and charged with the offence under Section 2 of the Human Trafficking Act 694 of 2005 which frowns on human trafficking in any form.
He said the unit had observed that some foreign nationals were abusing the Ghanaian hospitality by trafficking their own compatriots for prostitution.
He, therefore, cautioned all foreign nationals in Ghana to be mindful of the sort of activities they engaged in because “Ghana is not a haven for criminal activities”, noting that some foreign nationals often rent houses and engage themselves in all sort of dubious activities in the country.
He said the trafickers often engaged the girls, aged between 15 and 19, to white clients in hotels.
He pointed out that the suspects could not have operated for almost six months now without the support of some Ghanaians.
To that effect, he said the police were still investigating to establish whether the suspects were in league with some Ghanaians or not.
He said the exercise had been routine since the time they organised a swoop at Soldier Bar, a drinking spot at Kwame Nkrumah Circle and they would not cease until it had been reduced to its bearest minimum.
He said the operations would not had been successful without the assistance from Anas.
Anas Aremeyaw Anas told the Daily Graphic in an interview that he had been undercover for six months now to uncover the syndicate.
“I tried to obtain hard-core evidence that suggests that the girls were being exploited across the West African Sub-region”, he stated and indicated that, to establish that fact, he had to befriend a lady who worked in the rented apartment of the traffickers.
“It was a platonic relationship, that enabled me to get access to the house which no black person had access to except foreigners. I observed the place very well and documented all the all the information I needed by audio and video tape recording”, he disclosed and noted that to also establish the fact the money was changing hands in the trade, he needed evidence.
“To obtain evidence, I became a bar tender in seven different hotels, here in Accra, monitoring their activities, and whilst a bar tender, I got an expatriate friend who decided to play along”, he said.
Together with the expatriate friend, Anas said they contacted the traffickers with an intention to purchase one of the girls, who were sold at $6,000 each and filmed the whole process as evidence.
He explained that the girls were brought into the country with visitors permits of six months and when their permits expired they were taken to either Togo or Nigeria where they had another six months to do business, before returning to Ghana after securing another permit.
“They were arrested with $14,000 being last weeks pay, and some of the items found on them included, vibrators, performance drugs, and other sex toys”, he stated.