By: G Bennie Bravo Johnson
The Forest Development Authority (FDA) has sent the son of former Montserrado County District #12 Representative Richmond Anderson and eight others to court for theft of property, economic sabotage, criminal conspiracy, and criminal facilitation.
The police charge sheet said defendants Richmond Anderson, Beomjin Lee, Dauoda Sesay, Junjeon Sik, Isaac, Edward K. Jallah, Isaac Railey, Peter Kpadeh, David Taweh, and Prince K. Wallace violated Chapter 15, subchapter D, section 15.51; Chapter 15, subchapter F, section 15.80; and Chapter 10, sections 10.4, 10.2, and
In their complaints filed by Hon. Harrison Kanweah, board chair of the Forest Development Authority, it states that in September 2022, the joint security at the Klay and Sawmill check points in Bomi County arrested twenty-foot containers of round logs that were being taken from Gbarpolu County and were heading for the Freeport of Monrovia.
The charge sheet maintained that in July 2022, suspect Anderson met with two South Korean nationals named Beomjin Lee and Jun Sik in Liberia to arrange the purchase and shipment of logs from the Republic of Liberia, and defendant Anderson later introduced the Koreans to the CEO Group of Companies named Edwin Wesley, and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the CEO Group of Companies and the Koreans.
“Due to disagreement between the CEO of Eco Group and the Korean, the MoU was abandoned due to disagreement over the 12,000 United States requested by the group, and defendant Sesay was entrusted by the Korean to arrange the cutting, transportation, and shipment of the logs from Gbarpolu to the Freeport of Monrovia.”
The police charges revealed that suspect Kpadeh contacted two customs brokers, namely Prince Wallace and David Taweh, to assist in the arrangements with the Customs Authority at the Freeport of Monrovia for Export Permit (EP) acquisition.
Defendants Varney Marshall and suspect Edward Jallah, employees of the FDA, assigned a Clay check point, met with suspect Sesay, who claimed to be the owner of the logs, and arranged with the FDA employees to allow the truck with containers of logs to pass the Klay check point without proper assessment of documentation.
Defendant Marshall informed the investigation that Wallace gave them (Edward Jallah and Nathaniel Bolay) $400 at the Klay checkpoint and later sent $ on his phone so that the container trucks could be released.
The investigation noted that Benjamin Tennessee Plowen, deputy managing director for the Administration of the FDA, was invited by the investigation to provide clarity on his alleged role in the issuance of an FDA export permit for round logs (EKKI), which was provided to suspect Sesay through suspect Railey, but he failed to honor the invitation, which constitutes hindering law enforcement in contravention of the New Penal Code of Liberia.
