A Canadian businessman Alistair Mathias, who is based in Dubai with a company incorporated in Ghana, has been acquitted in a theft case brought against him.
His Ghanaian partner Henry Osei, owner of Gulrest Resources Company Limited (Ghana), reported Mathias to authorities in Dubai and Ghana alleging the latter owes him $9.2 million in a gold business.
However, Mathias who is the director of M.A Resources Limited, a company incorporated in Ghana, which he runs along with another trading and investment company which deals in gold, with Dubai as principal market in a global catchment, contended he borrowed the said amount to his Ghanaian counterpart to set up his business.
He said Osei staged the theft allegation against him.
After a long legal tussle, the Dubai court in its judgment moved for “the acquittal of the appellant Alistair Jude Mathias, from the charge levelled against him.”
The court therefore dismissed the case brought before it by Osei. Meanwhile, the same case is being heard in Ghana, but the Ghana Police has been served with the Dubai judgment to take a decision on it.
According to Mathias, through his gold dealing, he came into contact with Osei and one Eric Azu, directors of another gold dealing company based in Ghana called Guldrest Resources Company Limited, in 2013.
As directors of Guldrest, Henry and Eric had proposed to Alistair that he finance the purchase and export of gold through their Guldrest Resources, promising a better deal than the Ghana gold market in general can give.
In March 2013, Henry Osei had claimed that he was cash-strapped and therefore asked Mathias to fund a subsidiary of Guldrest in the United Arab Emirates so that they could use it together to deal in the Dubai market.
Mr. Mathias had turned down the idea, saying he already had a presence in the UAE through his company, but Osei pressed further until he had reluctantly agreed to set up the company for both of them.
As a founding director, Alistair Mathias had footed all the bills for setting up the company. UAE-based Guldrest Resources FZC, consequently got its business license on 24th March, 2013.
However, even before the formation of the company, Osei had been accumulating debt through borrowings from Matthias, since November 2012.
In a grand scheme to avoid paying the debt, Mathias said on the 4th of June, his Ghanaian business partner went to the police with a claim that his benefactor Mathias, had stolen $4million from him.
The same complaint against Alistair was filed in Dubai.
Eventually, however, the court, in the UAE, acquitted Alistair Mathias of all charges brought against him, agreeing with him that it is rather Osei and his company in Ghana, Guldrest Resources Limited (Ghana), who owe him more than $9.2million.
Mathias is currently in Ghana to get the police drop the case since “further prosecution will amount to double jeopardy”.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
