Kojo Owuso Dartey, a 42-year-old U.S. Army Major from Fort Liberty, has been sentenced to 70 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. The charges include making false statements to a U.S. agency, false declarations before the court, conspiracy, dealing in firearms without a license, delivering firearms without notice to the carrier, smuggling goods from the United States, and illegally exporting firearms without a license. A jury found Dartey guilty on April 23, 2024.
Court records and trial evidence revealed that Dartey was involved in a marriage fraud scheme between soldiers at Fort Liberty and foreign nationals from Ghana. During the U.S. v. Agyapong trial held from June 28 to July 2, 2021, he lied about his relationship with a defense witness both to federal law enforcement and under oath.
Dartey purchased seven firearms in the Fort Liberty area and instructed a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to buy three more firearms and send them to him in North Carolina. He concealed these weapons inside blue barrels beneath rice and household items. With assistance from an Army Chief Warrant Officer, he smuggled these barrels out of the Port of Baltimore on a container ship destined for the Port of Tema in Ghana. The Ghana Revenue Authority seized the firearms and reported this to the DEA attaché in Ghana and the ATF Baltimore Field Division.
Daniel Bubar, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, announced the sentencing carried out by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers II. The case was investigated by multiple agencies including the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms (ATF), Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), and U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement with Assistant U.S. Attorney Gabriel J. Diaz prosecuting.
