Another Bullion Van Attack In Gomoa, Escorts Narrowly Escape Death

Another bullion van has been attacked at Gomoa Dominase in the Central Region, with the driver and police escorts narrowly escaping with their lives in a disturbingly growing audacity of a bullion van robbery syndicate. 

The incident that happened today, Thursday, June 17, 2021, is barely three days after a young police escort of a bullion van was brutally shot in the head by armed robbers who laid an ambush on the rickety bullion van in James Town-Accra.

According to reports, the incident which happened in broad daylight (around 4 pm) some 500 meters from Okyereko police station, saw the desperate van driver manoeuvre expertly out of harm’s way as the armed robbers jumped out of their ambush to 

The robbers reportedly placed leaves on the highway to trick the driver into slowing down and falling into the booby trap. The robbers proceeded to open fire on the approaching van, but the terrified driver stepped on the accelerator and sped off.

Amidst the shootings, the windscreen of the bullion van may have been hit as it appeared shattered. However, no casualty was recorded for both the driver and the police escort on board.

A few days ago, Constable Emmanuel Osei in a bullion van of Montran Security Company with registration number GT 8592 W was ambushed at Jamestown in Accra and shot in the head by armed robbers, instantly killing him.

Whatsup News can report that the needed attacks on cash in transit vans could have been averted since October 2020, if banks and the Bank of Ghana (BoG) had shown any commitment to acquiring real armoured bullion vans instead of the “bread vans” currently being used to dangerously shuttled cash across the country.

As of October 2020, the BoG recognized that the attacks on the soft-bodied bullion vans used by banks in Ghana were a national security concern, yet failed to attach commensurate urgency to the situation.

On December 24, 2020, the BoG had written to the Alhasan Andani, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Bankers Association (GBA), instructing the bankers’ association to force all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and specialized deposit-taking institutions to phase out the soft-bodied rickety pick vans used to transport money for armoured plated bullion vans.

Apparently, the BoG had met with these DMBs on October 15, 2020, to instruct them to acquire armoured vans to protect both their cash and the personnel transporting them. 

In the December 2020 letter from the BoG signed by Ms. Alethea Godson-Amamoo, the central bank admitted that there is an increasing trend of armed criminals ambushing non-armoured bullion vans used by banks to move cash about.

The BoG wrote that the order for banks to use bulletproof bullion vans was “as a result of the spate of armed attacks during cash-in-transit activities, leading to loss of lives, currency and destruction of sophisticated equipment.”

The central bank told the GBA to involve it in the procurement of these armoured bullion vans to “Phase out and replace all soft-skinned cash-in-transit vehicles presently in use with fit-for-purpose armoured-plated vehicles with European standard B6 ballistic protection for the passenger compartment and European standard B4 for cargo compartment.”

However, the order from the BoG was totally ignored by the bankers.