Ghana’s armed robbery networks becoming more organised, violent – criminologist

Ghana is witnessing an increasingly complex and violent form of organised crime, with armed robbery networks relying on financing, intelligence, logistics and possible cross-border connections, criminologist and KNUST lecturer Dr Jones Opoku-Ware has warned.

He said the alleged attempt to simultaneously target three banks in Labone, Accra, was indicative of a changing pattern of organised robbery in the country.

Dr Opoku-Ware said criminals were increasingly moving away from isolated opportunistic attacks towards more systematic operations involving networks of people with specific roles.

“You can see a very complex evolution of the nature of the violent crimes currently we are seeing in the country,” he said on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (14 August).

According to him, some criminal networks may recruit people from outside Ghana to carry out operations before they leave the country.

He said patterns observed in Ghana increasingly resembled organised criminal activity seen in other parts of West Africa.

“There are people that have been imported into this system whose basic role is to come and do some of these things and normally go out of the system to go and cool off and then come back,” he said.

Dr Opoku-Ware also raised concerns about criminal activity around Ghana’s borders, saying the movement of people across the sub-region could create opportunities for organised crime networks to operate across jurisdictions.

He urged security agencies to pay closer attention to movement across Ghana’s borders and strengthen regional intelligence cooperation.

The criminologist said the involvement of people without strong family or community ties in Ghana could also contribute to the brutality associated with some attacks.

“When those people attack you, they are going to attack you with all their force without any form of empathy,” he said.

He described the evolving criminal networks as a “complex” phenomenon requiring a broader security response rather than treating each armed robbery as an isolated incident.

Dr Opoku-Ware urged the police to use information gathered from arrested suspects, recovered vehicles and weapons to identify links between robbery cases across the country.

He said criminal groups often move between locations to avoid detection, but they can leave similar patterns and evidence that investigators can use to connect apparently unrelated crimes.

“If proper investigation and proper analysis are done, the police can connect the dots,” he said.

He called for stronger collaboration among security agencies, particularly in tracking criminal networks operating across Ghana and the wider West African region.

Asaase Radio