National Security grabs car stealing syndicate

...Carl Wilson behind the deals
Posted: The Chronicle | Friday, 11 December 2009

By Charles Takyi-Boadu

President John Evans Atta Mills may have received all the praise for being an incorruptible man, but on the blind sight of the noble Professor, some of his men may be doing things that have the tendency of putting his government in a bad light.

This is exactly what happened on Wednesday, when confusion broke out on the precincts of the National Security Secretariat (Castle Annex), between operatives of the National Security and the customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) on one hand and a car syndicate, led by one Mr. Carl Wilson, alias ‘Rambo’, the chairman of the Disposal of Forfeited Vehicles Committee (DFVC) at the Tema Harbour on the other hand.

This was after the security agents impounded a 4x4 Chrysler vehicle that Mr. Wilson, together with his bodyguard whose name was only given as Daniel, and an Ivorian called Nana Kublan Olivier, had taken from the port, and were attempting to re-spray it at Asylum Down in Accra.

Soon after the car had been impounded, Mr. Wilson engaged the National Security operatives in a heated debate, during which he claimed that the said vehicle was to be given to ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, an assertion the ex-President refuted when he was reached on phone by the security operatives for verification.

Mr. Rawlings denied knowing Mr. Wilson, let alone, request for a confiscated car from him.

Credible sources at the National Security, who witnessed the incident, told the Chronicle newspaper that Mr. Rawlings subsequently sent three of his bodyguards, led by one Dr. Lawson, to disassociate him from the stolen car.

Having been embarrassed by the ex-President’s denials, Mr. Wilson then changed his story that the stolen 4x4 Chrysler vehicle was rather meant for the Department of State Protocol, much to the amusement of the security operatives. The Spokesman for the ex President, Kofi Adams, told the Chronicle that they were not aware of any such request for the vehicle.

Though he admitted knowing Mr. Wilson, Mr. Adams could however not tell whether the Office of the President had issued any such directive for a vehicle to be sent to Mr. Rawlings. For this reason, he said they have asked for an investigation into the issue, since they could not ascertain its veracity or otherwise.

According to our sources, the National Security and its related security agencies had closely monitored Mr. Wilson and his group for some time now, due to the rampant and strange circumstance at which confiscated cars at the Golden Jubilee Terminal at the Tema Harbour get missing without any trace.

However, the paper’s sources said Wilson and his group have been selling the vehicles to some second hand cars dealers in town, who buy these cars from them after they have been confiscated from their original owners.

But luck eluded him on Wednesday, when the security operatives caught him pants down, after trailing him from Tema.

A security source told the Chronicle that at about 6:00pm, during the day in question, the 4x4 Chrysler vehicle was moved by a towing truck with registration number GT 2454 E, with an inscription Koo Town Services. The truck moved from Tema to Accra, got to the Castle junction, as though it was heading for the Presidency, turned and headed towards Castle Annex, only to drive past the famous Blue Gate to Asylum Down, where it stopped at a garage.

Mr. Wilson is said to have joined Daniel Olivier and demanded that the 4x4 Chrysler vehicle, which was still bearing a foreign registration number plate, be sprayed in the night, but the owner became alarmed and explicitly told them to leave his garage but they refused and rather chose to change the registration number to avoid suspicion, and have it sprayed in a different garage.

It was at this stage that the security operatives pounced on them, and arrested Wilson and his colleagues, and impounded the car. The National Security Coordinator, Colonel Larry Gbevlo Lartey (Rtd), admitted when The Chronicle contacted him on phone, that there were some issues between his outfit and Carl Wilson, but said The Chronicle information was not entirely true, and asked the Chronicle to cross-check from his sources and get back to him later.

All efforts to reach him again, as agreed upon earlier, proved futile as his phone had been switched off. Carl Wilson also who failed to pick calls put through to his cell phone to get his side of the story. He also did not reply to text messages sent to him.

Meanwhile, some CEPS officers are asking the government to probe the activities of Mr. Wilson at the Tema Harbour, to know the true number of cars that have gone missing and the amount involved.