Maj. Kojo Owusu Dartey, 42, was sentenced on Tuesday to 70 months imprisonment by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II after his April 2024 conviction on charges related to smuggling weapons to Ghana and lying as a court witness, the Justice Department said. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stri)
A Fort Liberty Army officer convicted last year on federal gun smuggling and false statement charges will spend more than five years in prison, a federal judge in North Carolina decided
Maj. Kojo Owusu Dartey, 42, was sentenced on Tuesday to 70 months imprisonment by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II after his April 2024 conviction on charges related to smuggling weapons to Ghana and lying as a court witness, the Justice Department said.
A jury convicted Dartey of dealing in firearms without a license, delivering firearms without notice to the carrier, smuggling goods from the United States, illegally exporting firearms without a license, making false statements to a U.S. agency, making false declarations before the court, and conspiracy. He was acquitted on five counts of lying to gun stores while purchasing weapons, and on one charge that of impeding justice.
The firearms charges stemmed from an effort to smuggle weapons to Ghana via a container ship headed to west African nation from Baltimore, authorities said. The false statements charges were from a separate case in which prosecutors said Dartey lied as a witness in a marriage fraud case involving Fort Liberty soldiers and Ghana citizens.
Prosecutors charged that Dartey smuggled nine pistols, a shotgun, a rifle, 50-round magazines and suppressors inside blue barrels filled with rice and other innocuous household goods headed for Ghana in 2021. He also tasked a Fort Campbell, Ky.-based Army staff sergeant with purchasing three guns there and sending them to Dartey in North Carolina. Those weapons were also sent to Ghana, according to the Justice Department.
“The Ghana Revenue Authority recovered the firearms and reported the seizure to the DEA attaché in Ghana and the ATF Baltimore Field Division,” DOJ officials said.
Prosecutors said Darety provided the initial tip that alerted law enforcement to a 16-person marriage fraud scheme, which resulted in the conviction of former Army Sgt. Samuel Manu Agyapong, who was also stationed at Fort Liberty, on visa and marriage fraud charges in 2021.
Prosecutors charged that Dartey “lied to federal law enforcement about his sexual relationship with a defense witness and lied on the stand and under oath about the relationship,” during the July 2021 trial.
Dartey remained on active-duty status as of Friday and is assigned to the 18th Airborne Corp’s 3rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command at Fort Liberty, according to a spokesman for the corps.
However, Dartey has been held in federal custody and awaiting transfer to a federal prison since his sentencing on Tuesday, the spokesman said.
The soldier’s sentence included three years of supervised release after his prison term is concluded.
