Liberia Pig Killing Bureau (1)

South Korean Liberian Gold Harvest (Part 1)

Selected from the 2019 sentencing case of the Supreme Court of Liberia, it is hoped to learn from and warn.

Plaintiff Korean Kim Aleck complained:

In 2014, Nasser Aly, a Lebanese with a Sierra Leonean passport, sent the plaintiff an email online introducing him to the gold industry in Liberia, informing him that he had 16 kilograms of gold for as little as $568,000. Based on the above circumstances, the plaintiff and four people went to Liberia under the arrangement of Lebanese Nasser Aly and transferred 250,500 to the International Bank in Liberia through Kookmin Bank in South Korea.

Nasser Aly and the plaintiff agreed to trade at the City King Hotel, so the plaintiff withdrew $247,000 in cash from the bank to the hotel. During the inspection, five strong men broke through the door, claiming to be NSA staff, arrested everyone at the scene without a search warrant and arrest warrant, and confiscated $247,000 that the plaintiff had taken from the bank and $27,416 from South Korea, as well as some gold testing equipment, as well as Nasser Aly's handwritten receipt for the plaintiff's $284,000 gold transaction.

After four South Koreans were held naked and held in the NSA for some time, the NSA denied that the plaintiffs had $247,000 + $27,416 in cash and issued an official notice that the NSA seized $49,200 in counterfeit currency, oxygen, gas canisters, and molten gold materials in the course of law enforcement, and charged the South Koreans with four counts:

1. Illegal possession of inflammable and explosive materials, including cyanide.

2. Money Laundering

3. Counterfeit Currency

4. Conspiracy to defraud the government

After the incident, the South Korean government asked the then Liberian President Sirleaf to investigate the matter, and based on this, Sirleaf ordered a special investigation committee headed by David Jallah, the dean of the Liberian Law School, to investigate the matter, and the investigation report had two recommendations:

1. The staff of the State Security Agency violated the law by recommending that three of the five members of the State Security Agency be subject to administrative punishment, and the other two personnel who are not members of the State Security Agency are transferred to the Ministry of Justice.

2. The Government of Liberia shall return $247,000 lost by the plaintiff in the course of NSA's enforcement of the law.

After the special committee's investigation report, Sirleaf instructed: "Handle it according to law"! The investigation report was also issued through the President's Office to the Ministry of Justice and the National Security Service.

Based on this, the plaintiff went to the court of civil proceedings with the National Security Bureau and claimed $349,000 in specific damages and $2500,000 in moral damages.

South Korean Liberian Gold Harvest (Middle)

Brief introduction of the defendant's NSA defense through the Department of Justice:

The plaintiff did not register any business license with the Liberian Administration for Industry and Commerce and did not register any license to trade in gold with the Ministry of Mines and Energy, so the plaintiff's gold transaction was illegal; The Business License for Global Steel Enterprises and the Gold Trading License provided by Nasser Aly, a Lebanese with a Sierra Leonean passport, were found to be forgeries, so the entire transaction was illegal.

The plaintiff's lawsuit did not provide proof of the transfer of the money from Kookmin Bank of Korea to the Bank of Liberia, so it could not be proved that the plaintiff had transferred the money to the Liberian bank account; The withdrawer who provided the bank withdrawal voucher by the plaintiff was not the plaintiff, but a Korean named Jung Dal Park, so the plaintiff could not prove that the money was at the scene of the crime; The plaintiff did not have any evidence that NSA staff had taken the cash at the scene of the crime; When the lawyer bailed the plaintiff on NSA, he did not bring up the cash the plaintiff allegedly lost on the bail.

The defendant's staff went to law enforcement after receiving a report from an informant that someone was engaged in illegal activities, and found counterfeit money and inflammable and explosive materials at the scene before deciding to take the plaintiff back to the NSA for investigation.

The defendant argued that President Sirleaf's annotation to the report of the Special Commission of Inquiry read: "According to law!" The Ministry of Justice was not required to follow the contents of the investigation report. Even if the Special Investigation Committee's report found that these NSA staff violated the law, it was a personal act and had nothing to do with the NSA, because the head of the NSA was unaware of it and did not instruct it.

The intermediate court ruled that the evidence of the plaintiff's complaint against the defendant was not established!

Rationale: The plaintiff had already paid $284,000 in gold transactions with Nasser Aly, a Lebanese with a Sierra Leonean passport, and the ownership of the money no longer belonged to the plaintiff, so the plaintiff should sue Nasser Aly, not the Government of Liberia.

The Supreme Court ruled that the judges of the intermediate courts had incomplete evidence collection, rejected the judgment, and retried.

South Koreans Liberians Collect Gold Folding Halberds (Part 2)

Old Xie analyzes the case

For ease of understanding, I'll discuss the most common problems in this case:

1. Under what circumstances can I search?

Chapter 11 of the Criminal Code of Liberia, Search and Seizure, Article 1 of which stipulates that a search warrant must be issued by the competent district court; Article 6 stipulates that the enforcement personnel must issue a search warrant to the person subject to enforcement and inform the person subject to the search, the search must be carried out with the participation of the applicant, the person subject to enforcement and the court staff, and if there is an item that needs to be detained by the court, the court staff must confirm with the person subject to enforcement that the item was taken away and issue a written receipt.

Do the police and the NSA have the authority to break down doors and search?

It is illegal for any person or unit to search a private place without a search warrant, and what to do if there is a violent search:

a, ask the other party to issue a search warrant and work certificate, and immediately report to the police if they cannot be presented.

b, similar to this case, a large number of people directly broke into your room in a threatening manner, and the alarm conditions were not sufficient (such as controlling your mobile phone), you and the black people living or outside immediately shouted outside the living area to rob! The more blacks came, the more frightened they became! You must remember that a search without a warrant is illegal.

c, if you live in a relatively remote place, the first two conditions can not be completed, then what to do? When you arrive at the law enforcement unit, ask him to make a list and tell you to go to court to sue for illegal searches.

Real case sharing:

Two years ago a familiar Chinese asked for help, the bailiffs took a search warrant to search his home, because the black man reported that he used US dollars in Liberia and black people in China to exchange yuan, the crime was money laundering, he had a piece of gold more than 200 grams was found, I asked him to turn the phone on hands-free, here is the conversation:

Bailiff: Hello, The Judicial Police of the City Court of Monrovia perform the search, what's the matter?

Me: I am a friend of ** and it is said that the search did not record the detention of objects, is this true?

Bailiff: Go to the court and take notes.

Me: The Criminal Law clearly stipulates that the search must confirm the list of detained items with the person being searched.

Bailiff:.....

Me: The piece of brass that you put in your pocket took out and recorded it, we are now recording the call, and I have told you that ** has the right to check with you to detain the items.

Bailiff: It's not gold....