{"id":11251,"date":"2025-05-30T08:40:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T08:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=11251"},"modified":"2025-05-30T08:40:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T08:40:31","slug":"wontumi-under-probe-for-alleged-fraud-money-laundering-and-international-organised-crime-deputy-a-g","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/?p=11251","title":{"rendered":"Wontumi under probe for alleged fraud, money laundering and international organised crime \u2013 Deputy A-G"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Justice Srem-Sai, has broken his silence on the controversial detention of Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, revealing that the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is under investigation for alleged serious criminal offences, including fraud, causing financial loss to the state, and money laundering.<\/p>\n

In a Facebook post on Thursday, 28 May 2025, Justice Srem-Sai disclosed that the investigations are not limited to local criminal activities but also form part of a wider international organised crime probe, being undertaken in collaboration with global law enforcement partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuspect Bernard Antwi Boasiako, a.k.a. Chairman Wontumi, is under investigation for various criminal offences\u2026 The criminal investigation is running concurrently with asset recovery processes\u2014to prevent further dissipation of what law enforcement agencies strongly suspect to be proceeds of crime,\u201d the Deputy Attorney-General wrote.<\/p>\n

He further explained that a second strand of the investigation is part of a \u201clarger international organised crime scheme,\u201d with the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) actively working alongside international agencies.<\/p>\n

This public clarification from the Deputy A-G comes hours after Minority NPP Members of Parliament staged a walkout from the House and marched to the headquarters of EOCO in Accra to protest what they described as harsh bail conditions imposed on their party stalwart.<\/p>\n

Chairman Wontumi was reportedly held overnight after failing to meet a GH\u00a250 million bail condition set by EOCO in connection with the ongoing investigations.<\/p>\n

For more than three hours on Thursday, NPP MPs and party executives picketed outside EOCO\u2019s premises, demanding the review of what they considered unjust bail conditions and insisting that Wontumi’s detention was politically motivated.<\/p>\n

However, the Deputy Attorney-General\u2019s statement provides the first official insight into the depth and seriousness of the charges facing<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The bail terms, which include significant financial and legal obligations, appear to be part of efforts to ensure that suspected illicit assets are not lost or moved during the investigation.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, EOCO has maintained its silence on the political fallout.<\/p>\n

Chairman Wontumi was arrested by EOCO on Tuesday, May 27, after he reported to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for questioning. He was subsequently held at the EOCO head office in Accra.<\/p>\n

His lawyer, Andy Appiah Kubi, confirmed that his client was being investigated on allegations of causing financial loss to the state.<\/p>\n

He was subsequently granted bail of GH\u00a250 million with two sureties, both to be justified.<\/p>\n

Chairman Wontumi, however, spent the night behind bars at the EOCO headquarters in Accra after failing to meet the full bail conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Justice Srem-Sai, has broken his silence on the controversial detention of Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, revealing that the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) is under investigation for alleged serious criminal offences, including fraud, causing financial loss to the state, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":11256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,18],"tags":[3570,3398,232],"class_list":["post-11251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","category-politics","tag-bernard-antwi-boasiako","tag-justice-srem-sai","tag-npp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11251"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11258,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11251\/revisions\/11258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}