Custom officers arrest TV3 journalist at Paga border; fire warning shots in new video
- A TV3 journalist has been arrested by officers of the Customs Division of the GRA
- Mohammed Rabiu Tanko is TV3’s Upper East Regional Correspondent
- He was arrested at the Paga border while covering a story
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Officers of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority have arrested TV3’s Upper East Region Correspondent, Mohammed Rabiu Tanko, YEN.com.gh can report.
Source: Original
The officers arrested Tanko at the Paga-Burkina Faso border while he was covering a story.
According to 3News.com, the officers fired multiple warning shots at the time of arresting the journalist.
Tanko was at the border to run checks on allegations of extortion and exorbitant parking fees being demanded from articulator truck drivers by the Customs officers.
The customs officers at the duty parking place, 3News reported illegally charge each truck driver GHc50 without issuing receipts.
This led to massive chaos at the border—a scene Tanko began filming with his phone. The officers got infuriated by his action and launched into him.
“Then within some few seconds, the customs officers spotted me and rushed on me, seized the phone, telling me why am I taking [the video]?” he recounted.
“They held my shirt through the neck and pulled my ID card away, they removed the ID card from the holder … then they started firing [warning shots] again and pulled me to their office,” he added.
The officers forced Tanko to wipe out all the videos from his phone.
Watch the video of the arrest below...
He has since been freed.
Tanko’s experience with the country’s security agencies is coming on the back of the outrage generated when some National Security operatives stormed Citi FM to arrest its journalists.
In other news, an Accra High Court has admitted the six Chinese nationals arrested for engaging in illegal mining to bail.
Chen Guibin, Yao Zengcan, Lu Xiaobin, Wu Xiaobin, Cheng Churoung, and Xue Lianhua were arrested at Asankragua in the Western Region.
The six applied for bail at the High Court after the Kaneshie District Court remanded them into police custody last month.
They have, however, not been able to meet the bail bond.
They are being held on six counts of possession of firearms without lawful excuse among others, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) reported as sighted by YEN.com.gh.
According to the facts, as narrated by the prosecution, the accused persons who were arrested at the Resort Holyday Hotel and Xim Di Hotel at Asankragua are into the buying, selling, and refinery of gold without authority.
During the arrest, six pump action guns and cash of GHC1,292,180, sandy substances suspected to be gold dust, a yellow bar suspected to be a gold bar, and liquid substances suspected to be mercury, were found.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
