‘Deadly Voyage’ survivor arrested in €120,000 scam after 26-year evasion

Kinsley Ofosu, the lone survivor of the harrowing “Deadly Voyage” stowaway incident in 1992, has been apprehended in connection with an alleged 120,000 euros scam, according to onuaonline.com.

After an extensive 26-year-long search, Ofosu was arrested on Saturday, October 14, 2023, at his hideout in Prampram. He was subsequently brought before Takoradi Circuit Court B.

Inspector Robert Yawson, the prosecutor, informed the court that Ofosu had been a fugitive since 1998.

Despite multiple attempts by the police to apprehend him, he had remained elusive.

Inspector Yawson requested the court remand Ofosu to allow the police to complete their investigations.

Counsel for the accused, Victor Owusu, pleaded for bail on behalf of his client.

However, the court did not grant the request, and Ofosu has been remanded into police custody. He is set to reappear in court on October 30, 2023.

Charles Ohemeng, the complainant, revealed that he met Ofosu in Germany in 1997, following the survivor’s international notoriety after the “Deadly Voyage” incident.

He decided to ship vehicles and printing machines through Ofosu, from Europe to Ghana.

Ohemeng recounted, “I bought Mercedes Benz, tanker, Nissan, double axle vehicle, Opel, printing machines, and many others, amounting to about 240,000 deutschmarks (equivalent to 120,000 euros) at the time. I shipped them to him in Ghana, and that was the end of everything. I did not hear from him again until his arrest today.”

In 1992, Kinsley Ofosu made headlines globally when he miraculously survived the brutal slaughter of a group of African stowaways by the crew of the Bahamian-flagged Ukrainian-crewed cargo ship MC Rugby.

The ship had docked in Takoradi to load cocoa, and the stowaways had hoped for a better life in Europe.

The crew discovered the stowaways, leading to a gruesome and tragic series of killings, with Ofosu being the only survivor.

This heart-wrenching story was later dramatised in the 1996 film “Deadly Voyage,” featuring prominent actors, including Ghana’s David Dontoh, and distributed to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Home Box Office (HBO). The film starred Omar Epps as Kinsley Ofosu.