FDA Sends Richmond Anderson and Nine Others to Court for Illegal Mining  

The Forest Development Authority (FDA) has sent the son of Richmond Anderson, a former Representative of District #12, and eight others to court for theft of Property, Economic Sabotage, Criminal Conspiracy, and Criminal facilitation.

Their crimes violate Chapter 15, subchapter D section 15.51; Chapter 15, subchapter F section 15.80; Chapter 10, section 10.4,10.2 of the new penal code law of Liberia.

Isaac Richmond Anderson, Jr. was accused of carrying out illegal mining activity in August last year after when he returned to Liberia from serving as the First Secretary at the Liberian Consulate in South Korea and decided to start a logging business

However, according to the police charge sheet, Defendant Beomjin Lee, Dauoda Sesay, Junjeon Sik, Isaac Richmond Anderson, Edward K. Jallah, Isaac Railey, Peter Kpadeh, David Taweh, and Prince K. Wallace, in their complaints filed by Hon. Harrison Kanweah, Board chair of the Forest Development Authority says in September, the joint security at the Klay and Sawmill checkpoints in Bomi County arrested twenty feet 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, while in Liberia, suspect Anderson met with two south Korean Nationals: Beomjin Lee and Jun Sik to arrange the purchase and shipment of logs from the country, and defendant Anderson later introduced the Koreans to the CEO of Group of Companies, Edwin Wesley and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Eco group of Companies and Korean. 

“Due to disagreement between the Ceo of Eco group and the Korean, the MoU was abandoned due to disagreement over twelve thousand 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,” police charge sheet indicates.

The police charges further revealed that suspect Kpadeh contacted two customs brokers: Prince Wallace and David Taweh to assist in the arrangements with the custom Authority at the Freeport of Monrovia for Export Permit(EP) acquisition.

Defendants Varney Marshall and suspect Edward Jallah employees of the FDA assigned at Clay checkpoint 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 checkpoint without proper assessment of documentation.

Defendant Marshall informed the investigation that Wallace gave them ( Edward Jallah, Nathaniel Bolay) the amount of US $400 at Klay checkpoint and later sent the US $300 on his phone so that they can release the container trucks.

The investigation noted that Benjamin Tennessee plowed, deputy Managing director for the Administration of FDA was invited by the investigation to provide clarity on his alleged played role in the issuance of an FDA export permit for the round logs (EKKI ) which was provided to the suspect Sesay through suspect Railey but failed to honor the invitation which constitutes hindering law enforcement in contravention of the New Penal Code of Liberia.