The Ghana Prisons Service has announced the interdiction of Chief Prison Officer Michael Osei-Bonsu following his arrest for attempting to smuggle a substance suspected to be Indian hemp into the Kete-Krachi prison facility.
According to the Prison Service, Chief Prison Officer Michael Osei-Bonsu on Friday, June 19, 2026, attempted to smuggle a substance suspected to be Indian hemp with the suspected narcotic substance detected and retrieved at the prison gate.
In a statement issued by its Public Affairs Department on June 23, 2026, it read, “The Ghana Prisons Service has interdicted No. 8566 Chief Officer Michael Osei-Bonsu following his arrest for allegedly attempting to smuggle a substance suspected to be Indian hemp into the Kete-Krachi Local Prison”.
“During routine security checks conducted by officers on duty before the commencement of the officer’s night shift. Through the vigilance and professionalism of the officers, the suspected narcotic substance was detected and retrieved at the prison gate”, the statement said.
“The officer was immediately handed over to the Kete-Krachi District Police for further investigations,” it said.
The Prison Service further disclosed that the suspect has since been arraigned before the Kete-Krachi District Magistrate’s Court and remanded into custody for two weeks.
The case has also been adjourned to July 8, 2026.
In other news, an ex-convict known as Blade has blown the whistle on how personnel of the Ghana Prison Service allegedly use inmates for crimes.
The ex-convict alleged that some incarcerated prisoners are secretly used to carry out crimes beyond the confines of Ghana’s prisons.
He alleged that when inmates are taken out of the prison yard for communal work, the supervising prison officer purposely selects what he described as the “four best criminals” to accompany them, while the remaining four are assigned to the work.
The ex-convict narrated that when the inmates are taken out for communal activities such as cleaning gutters or clearing weeds, the prison officer allegedly allows the “four best criminals” to go on “operations,” such as pickpocketing, theft, and other petty crimes.
He claimed that these four best criminals are given a specific time to return so that they can be taken back to the prison yard, adding that when these inmates go into town and are caught and beaten, they often find ways to convince members of the public to take them back to the prison officer, who then shields them.
The ex-convict added, “There are prison officers who are criminals themselves. When it is time to take inmates out for communal work, these officers deliberately select what they consider the ‘best criminals’ under the guise of assigning them to such duties. Once outside, they allow some of the inmates to break away and engage in criminal activities, particularly those known for pickpocketing and other forms of theft.
“The officers then instruct them to return at a specified time, after which they escort them back into the prison yard. If the inmates fail to return, it could create problems for the officers involved,” Blade alleged.
Also, Blade made wild allegations about Ghana’s prison system, revealing how incarcerated prisoners with no family ties on the outside are often released to certain individuals for various reasons, including rituals.
According to the ex-convict, Prison Officers used the inmate visitor log book to identify inmates whom they released to certain individuals for various reasons, including rituals as ‘special transfer people’.
Speaking in an interview with Kay B Media on June 12, 2026, when asked about allegations of human trafficking in the prison, Blade alleged, saying, “It is an easy thing there; a lot of inmates are there who do not receive visitors. Some inmates are there who do not know where they are, even serving their sentence. Most of the time, people from the social welfare come around for numbers, but some people do not have any contacts.
So, for that, when the government want someone for something at night, you will hear names being mentioned for transfer, but we don’t know where they are taking them. They even engage in rituals. When they open the visit book, they know inmates who receive visitors.
They can even tell you these are special transfer people. Do you know where they are taking them? Some people even take contracts to discipline inmates in prison.
In the past, when they were going to perform some rituals, weren’t it prisoiners that were taken?”, he alleged.
The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has thrown out an application filed by former Chief Justice Gertrude Torkornoochallenging her removal from office as Chief Justice and Justice of Ghana’s Supreme Court.
— GHnow (@ghnow_) June 24, 2026
According to reports,… pic.twitter.com/zFoQehTwAk
