A former managing director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Asante Berko appealed a UK decision to extradite him to the US where he faces accusations of bribing Ghanaian officials when he worked for Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Asante Berko is alleged to have conspired with Ghanaian officials and others in a bribery scheme that benefited him, the bank and a Turkish energy company that wanted to build a power plant in Ghana, according to prosecution filings for a London appeal.
Berko’s lawyers said at a hearing Thursday that a previous judge’s order to extradite him to the US should be thrown out. They said that the charges were not extradition offenses and that most of the alleged acts took place in London.
Lawyer’s for the US government countered that the extradition should go ahead and that Berko and other unnamed co-conspirators bribed Ghanaian officials with more than US$700,000, according to court documents.
They said the group agreed to be reimbursed for these bribes by the energy firm by issuing fraudulent invoices. These reimbursements were then transferred from Turkey, through US bank accounts and on to Ghana.
Berko was also sued over the same conduct by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020. He resolved the SEC’s suit by agreeing to pay more than US$329,000 to regulators without admitting or denying the allegations.
A Goldman spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Berko was previously an executive director in Goldman’s natural-resources group.
He then went on to serve as managing director of Tema Oil Refinery Ltd but stepped down after the SEC suit, according to US filings.
He was arrested at London Heathrow Airport in 2022.
