Officers of the Ghana Police Service have reportedly arrested the armed robbers who shot and killed one of their colleagues during a bullion van robbery at Ablekuma Fan Milk, a suburb of Accra.
A video circulating on social media shows a crowd of people at the Star Oil Filling Station where the fatal incident occurred in the early hours of Thursday, June 22, 2023.
Some people in the excited crowd could be heard in the video hailing the police and saying “the robbers have been caught”.
The Ghana Police Service has not officially announced the arrest of the robbers for whom they have been on a manhunt.
The deceased police officer was accompanying a bullion van during his duty when he met his untimely death. Reports say he was seated in the front of the vehicle when the assailants attacked and shot her multiple time at close range.
The police service launched a manhunt for the criminals and hours later, they reportedly managed to identify and apprehend them.
It is reported that the young murdered officer married not long ago and he and his wife have a toddler.
This is not the first bullion van robbery that resulted in the killing of a police officer. Below are some of the incidents that happened in the last two years:
On May 2020, four armed robbers attacked a bullion van at Techiman and made away with over Ghc 600,000. In January 2021, armed robbers attacked a bullion van at Fomena in the Ashanti Region and stole Ghc500,000. The criminals killed a police officer in the process of the robbery. Five suspects were later arrested in relation to the incident.
Then, in February 2021, there was another bullion van attack near Kingsway. The following month, March, another one occurred at Baatsona, Spintex the same year.
In June 2021, robbers attacked a bullion van at Jamestown, Adedenkpo and killed a police officer who was escorting it.
In February 2022, there was another attempted robbery of a bullion van in the North Kaneshie Industrial Area.
The high incidence of robbery attacks on bullion vans sparked concerns and conversations about the need for banks to purchase bullet-proof vans, but it doesn’t appear those conversations between the Ghana Police Service and the banks have yielded the intended results.
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