Ghana’s self-acclaimed Dancehall King, Shatta Wale, is now facing the fight of his life as a $150,000 exotic car has pulled him straight into the crosshairs of investigators.
The star, whose real name is Charles Nii Armah, was detained on Wednesday by Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) after US authorities linked his flashy yellow ride to the proceeds of a fraud syndicate.
That syndicate was run by another Ghanaian, Nana Kwabena Amuah, who is already cooling his heels in an American jail after bagging a seven-year sentence for defrauding nearly 70 organisations through vendor impersonation scams.
The vehicle has since been seized and, according to EOCO, will be returned to the United States to help compensate Amuah’s victims.
But Wale is crying foul. The singer insists he is only a “third-party owner” of the luxury machine and knows nothing about how it even entered Ghana. His management is also playing down the US angle, claiming his detention is merely about tax obligations.
Still, the optics are messy. This is Shatta Wale — one of Ghana’s biggest exports, the man who rode on Beyoncé’s Already to global fame in 2019. Yet today, instead of trending for music, he is trending for fraud.
The scandal is happening as Ghana and US authorities ramp up their joint war against cybercrime. Only days ago, three other Ghanaians accused of masterminding a $100m romance and phishing scam were extradited to America.
