A Ghanaian soldier with the United States Army, Major Kojo Owusu Dartey, has been found guilty of smuggling guns to Ghana, using blue barrels containing rice and home goods.

According to a report by the United States Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of North Carolina, and dated April 29, 2024, Major Kojo Dartey faces a maximum of 240 months in prison.

The sentencing, according to the report, will be delivered on July 23, 2024.

“… between June 28 and July 2, 2021, Dartey purchased seven firearms in the Fort Liberty area and tasked a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to purchase three firearms there and send them to Dartey in North Carolina. Dartey then hid all the firearms, including multiple handguns, an AR15, 50-round magazines, suppressors, and a combat shotgun inside blue barrels underneath rice and household goods and smuggled the barrels out of the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, on a container ship to the Port of Tema in Ghana.

“The Ghana Revenue Authority recovered the firearms and reported the seizure to the DEA attaché in Ghana and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Baltimore Field Division,” portions of the report said.

Major Kojo Owusu Dartey was once featured on Kofi TV where he spoke about some of the details of the work of the special forces in the US Army.