Ghanaian journalist jailed for reporting on $94 million fraud petition involving oil tycoon Kevin Okyere

The Managing Editor of The Herald newspaper, Larry Dogbey, has been convicted and sentenced to seven days' imprisonment by an Accra High Court in a case directly connected to his publication's reporting on a $94 million fraud allegation involving Ghanaian oil billionaire Kevin Okyere and Swiss multinational Petraco Oil Company SA.

The ruling was delivered on June 25, 2026, by Justice Isaac Addo of the Accra High Court. Dogbey announced the conviction on his personal Facebook page immediately after the verdict, describing the judgment as unjust and insisting that The Herald had only reported on the contents of a formal petition submitted by Petraco to Ghana's state investigative institutions. "Justice Isaac Addo of an Accra High Court has just convicted me and sentenced me to seven days' imprisonment in the case involving Kevin Okyere and Petraco SA. The Herald newspaper reported only on a petition filed by the multinational company with CID, EOCO, GIPC, Attorney-General, etc. Ghana deserves better. Journalism is not a crime," he wrote.

The case against Dogbey centres on The Herald's coverage of a petition filed by Petraco Oil Company SA in May 2025, in which Alberto Salsiccia, the Swiss company's Chief Financial Officer, accused Okyere, his Springfield Exploration and Production Limited, and associated company GMP Energy of executing what Petraco described as a systematic fraud scheme involving approximately $94 million. Petraco alleged two separate schemes: a petroleum products fraud totalling more than $30 million in which GMP Energy allegedly retained proceeds from a gasoline sale despite BOST having made full payment, and a unitisation loan fraud involving a $50 million facility extended to Springfield for a unitisation project with ENI Ghana that Petraco alleged was never commercially viable. Petraco filed petitions with Ghana's Criminal Investigations Department, the Economic and Organised Crime Office, the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre and the Attorney-General's Department requesting criminal investigation.

The Herald, which has been one of the most aggressive publications pursuing the Petraco-Springfield dispute, reported extensively on the petition and its contents. It also published a February 2026 report linking President John Mahama's visit to Dubai to the diplomatic arrangements that facilitated Okyere's release from detention in the emirate, where he had been held after failing to respond to a court summons in a pending adjudication at the Dubai International Arbitration Centre. Okyere was detained in Dubai upon arrival in connection with the Petraco dispute and was later released. The Herald's reporting on that episode drew significant public attention and appeared to accelerate the legal pressure on the newspaper.

Okyere has acknowledged in cross-examination before a Ghanaian court that Petraco did file a petition and that state authorities investigated it. He told the court that both the CID and the Attorney-General concluded the matter was commercial rather than criminal in nature. On the $50 million loan, Okyere denied providing a personal guarantee, maintaining that the facility was a commercial arrangement in which Springfield shares served as collateral. Springfield has consistently denied all fraud allegations, describing the dispute as a contractual matter rather than a criminal one. "This remains a contractual matter, not a criminal one," the company stated in a letter shared with Billionaires.Africa in July 2025.

The conviction of Dogbey has immediate implications for press freedom in Ghana. The journalist's argument — that a newspaper cannot be criminally liable for reporting on the contents of a formal petition submitted to state investigative authorities — is one that press freedom advocates are expected to challenge in an appeal. The Ghana Journalists Association and international media freedom organisations had not issued formal statements as of the time of this report. The specific legal basis for the conviction, including whether Dogbey was found guilty of contempt of court, criminal libel or another offence, was not disclosed in the court's public communication as of the time of filing.

Kevin Okyere built Springfield Group from its founding in 2008 into Ghana's most prominent indigenous upstream oil company, securing the West Cape Three Points Block 2 licence in 2016 — the first block awarded to a wholly Ghanaian-owned company with a majority stake in an upstream oil asset — and announcing the Afina discovery in 2019, billed at the time as potentially containing up to 1.5 billion barrels. He has faced a series of parallel legal and commercial disputes since 2024, including the Petraco petition, a separate dispute with ENI over the unitisation of the Afina field, and the Dubai detention episode. He has consistently maintained his innocence across all proceedings.