Chairman Wontumi isn't fighting one galamsey case - he's been in and out of Ghanaian courtrooms on illegal
mining allegations tied to at least two separate forest and mining sites since October 2025, plus a
financial fraud case that's technically separate but grew out of the same mining empire. As of today, July
20, 2026, one of those cases has ended in a guilty verdict and a 20-year sentence. The other is still
running.
Here's the full breakdown of how Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, the NPP's Ashanti Regional Chairman, went from
galamsey's most quoted defender to a convicted man in under a year.
Case one: Samreboi - the one that just ended
This is the case that concluded today, 20th July, 2026. Wontumi, his company Akonta Mining Limited, and co-director Kwame Antwi were charged over an October 2025 arrest after police found workers mining on Akonta's Samreboi concession in the Western Region without ministerial approval. Wontumi's defence insisted the arrangement with the men on site was for land reclamation and coconut farming, not gold. The court didn't buy it. Justice Audrey Kocuvie-Tay convicted all three on charges under the Minerals and Mining Act and sentenced Wontumi to 20 years.
Case two: Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve - still unresolved
This is the bigger, messier case, and it's still before the courts. It traces back to a petition filed with
Ghana's Criminal Investigations Department roughly three years ago - while Nana Akufo-Addo was still
president - alleging Akonta Mining was operating illegally inside the protected Tano Nimiri Forest
Reserve.
Prosecutors say the company applied to mine inside the reserve in August 2022 and was refused. Despite that,
they allege Akonta Mining moved in anyway, running more than 40 excavators across roughly 13 hectares,
felling over 300 trees, erecting checkpoints and worker housing, and polluting the Tano River. One
especially damning detail from the charge sheet: on August 17, 2022, an armed group allegedly linked to
Akonta's operations manager blocked an enforcement team trying to leave the site and forced them to
surrender seized equipment.
Wontumi and four others - the company, General Manager Edward Akuoko, Operations Manager Kwadwo Owusu
Bempah, and co-director Kwame Antwi - were charged with seven counts in October 2025. Akuoko later flipped,
agreeing to testify for the prosecution in exchange for having his case dropped, and told the court in April
2026 that Wontumi personally instructed the team to mine inside the reserve. Bempah and Antwi remain at
large. As of the most recent court update, in June 2026, prosecution witnesses were still being
cross-examined - meaning this case has not reached judgment and no outcome is confirmed yet.
The financial case running alongside it
Separate from both mining files is a GH₵30 million fraud case tied to the Ghana Export-Import Bank, where the Economic and Organised Crime Office alleges Wontumi and associates used forged documents to secure financing meant for Akonta Mining equipment. He's pleaded not guilty to defrauding by false pretenses, money laundering, and causing financial loss to a public body. Notably, his lawyers approached the Attorney-General's office in June 2026 to discuss a plea deal - a very different posture from the outright denial strategy used in the mining cases.
Why the pattern matters
Three prosecutions, three different legal postures, one company at the centre of all of them. That's not
typical for Ghanaian galamsey enforcement, where cases against politically connected figures have
historically stalled for years or quietly disappeared. The Tano Nimiri petition sat for three years under
one government before charges were finally filed under another - a timeline that itself says something about
how mining enforcement moves when the accused carries a party title.
The Tano Nimiri Forest Reserve trial is the one to watch now. With Akuoko's testimony on record and
the Samreboi conviction fresh, prosecutors have momentum going into the next phase - and a second guilty
verdict would leave Wontumi fighting his Exim Bank case from a far weaker position than he started in.