U.S. Army Major Kojo Owusu Dartey has been sentenced to 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release for smuggling firearms to Ghana and making false statements to federal authorities.

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The 42-year-old, based at Fort Liberty, was found guilty by a jury on April 23, 2024, on charges including conspiracy, illegal firearm dealing, false declarations in court, and exporting firearms without a license.

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According to court records and trial evidence, Dartey orchestrated a firearms smuggling operation by purchasing seven firearms in North Carolina and instructing a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to buy three more and send them to him.

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He then concealed the weapons inside blue barrels filled with rice and household goods before working with an Army Chief Warrant Officer to smuggle them through the Port of Baltimore, Maryland.

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The barrels were shipped to the Port of Tema, Ghana, where Ghanaian authorities later seized them and alerted the DEA attaché in Ghana and the ATF Baltimore Field Division.

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Dartey was also linked to a 16-defendant marriage fraud scheme involving soldiers at Fort Liberty and foreign nationals from Ghana. He provided information that led to its prosecution but later lied to federal law enforcement and under oath in court about his relationship with a defense witness during the U.S. v. Agyapong trial between June 28 and July 2, 2021.

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His sentencing was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Daniel Bubar, following an investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), and the Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabriel J. Diaz prosecuted the case.

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