Asante Berko, Ex-Goldman Sachs Banker and Former TOR MD, Convicted in US$1 Million Ghana Bribery Scheme

By News Desk | August 8, 2026

A federal jury in Brooklyn has convicted Asante Kwaku Berko, a dual US-Ghana citizen and former Goldman Sachs executive, on all counts of a sweeping foreign-bribery and money-laundering conspiracy tied to a power plant deal in Ghana — capping a saga that began more than a decade ago and ended with the 52-year-old being led away in custody to await a sentence that could send him to prison for up to 30 years.

The verdict, returned on August 6, 2026 after a nine-day trial before United States District Judge Diane Gujarati, makes Berko the highest-profile Ghanaian public figure to be convicted under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in recent memory.

Who is Asante Berko?

Berko's resume reads like a portrait of Ghanaian elite ambition. Born and raised in Kumasi, he was educated at Achimota School before building a career in international finance that took him to the London subsidiary of Goldman Sachs as an Executive Director in the Investment Banking Division.

In January 2020, he returned home to one of the most scrutinised jobs in the Ghanaian energy sector: Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), the country's only refinery, appointed during the Akufo-Addo administration. He later resigned from that role amid the unfolding US investigation.

Before his government appointment, Berko had been linked to several flagship national projects, including the conceptualization of Terminal 3 at Kotoka International Airport during President John Mahama's first administration and securing funding for the Afari Military Hospital, a 500-bed facility in the Ashanti Region.

It was his earlier work at Goldman, however, that would prove his undoing.

The scheme: Power, bribes, and a Turkish client

According to evidence presented at trial, the conspiracy ran from approximately December 2014 to March 2017, against the backdrop of Ghana's crippling national energy crisis.

At the time, Berko was responsible for securing and managing a deal between the Republic of Ghana and Aksa Enerji Üretim AS (Aksa), a Turkish energy company and Goldman Sachs client, for the construction and financing of a power plant. For Aksa to build and operate the plant, it needed an Emergency Power Agreement (EPA) with the Ghanaian government — and that required approvals from ministers, regulators, parliamentarians, and equipment inspectors.

Prosecutors said Berko conspired to pay, and did pay, more than US$1 million in bribes to Ghanaian officials at multiple levels of government to ensure Aksa won and kept the contract.

The specifics laid out at trial were striking:

• In April 2015, Berko and his co-conspirators discussed paying US$1 million to Ghana's Minister of Power — the official responsible for securing the key approvals — and US$250,000 to the minister's senior adviser.
• Bribes were paid to five Ghanaian officials during an all-expenses-paid trip to Turkey to inspect equipment for the proposed plant.
• After the Ghanaian Parliament ratified the power plant agreement in July 2015, Berko and his co-conspirators exchanged detailed emails about further bribe payments.
• In August 2015, they discussed US$250,000 in additional bribes, including US$46,000 that Berko himself paid to members of the Ghanaian Parliament that had ratified the Aksa deal.
• In one email, a bribe recipient was described as waiting for the “holy rain” — a coded reference to the payment — and “would appreciate it sooner rather than later.”

Prosecutors also told jurors that Berko leveraged political connections inside Ghana, including links to the brother of the then-president, to push the scheme through.

How Berko tried to hide it

The trial heard detailed evidence of the lengths Berko went to in order to keep Goldman Sachs in the dark.

He lied to the bank's compliance team responsible for vetting the transaction. He used his personal email account rather than his Goldman business account to discuss the deal and the bribe payments, and directed his co-conspirators to do the same. He and his partners concealed the bribe payments through shell companies, sham invoices, nominee account holders, and cash withdrawals, laundering the funds through both US and foreign bank accounts.

Despite his efforts, Goldman Sachs identified red flags, raised concerns about the role of an opaque intermediary firm, and ultimately withdrew from the transaction. According to evidence at trial, Berko continued to pursue the project independently in anticipation of financial rewards even after the bank walked away.

The FBI later traced large sums of money to Berko's account at Zenith Bank in Ghana, which was subsequently frozen on the Bureau's orders.

The long road to conviction

The case against Berko moved slowly through the US legal system, but it never stopped moving.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil lawsuit against Berko in April 2020, alleging he had facilitated up to US$4.5 million in bribes and personally paid at least US$66,000 to members of the Ghanaian Parliament. He settled that case in June 2021 for approximately US$329,000 in disgorgement and interest, without admitting or denying the allegations — a sum his lawyer at the time, Carl Loewenson Jr., said left Berko “pleased to put this matter behind him.”

The criminal track was more aggressive. The Department of Justice filed a three-count indictment under seal on August 26, 2020, charging Berko with conspiracy to violate the FCPA, substantive FCPA violations, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment was unsealed on November 3, 2022.

Berko was extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States in July 2024, with substantial assistance from the UK National Central Bureau for INTERPOL, the US Embassy in London, the DOJ's Office of International Affairs, and the US Marshals Service.

The trial: A Milli Vanilli defense and a Goldman witness

When opening statements began on July 28, 2026, the Justice Department's message was blunt. “This case is about corruption,” prosecutor Katherine Raut told the jury of four women and eight men. “The defendant was at the center of every piece of it.”

Berko's defense lawyer, Robert Boone, pushed back hard. Comparing the government's narrative to the disgraced pop duo Milli Vanilli — famous for lip-syncing someone else's songs — Boone told jurors the prosecution's story was “incredible” but not true. He argued Berko had acted only as an intermediary between Aksa and a local Ghanaian partner during efforts to resolve the electricity crisis, and that his role was limited to helping the company secure financing after it had already won the contract.

Boone also questioned the strength of the evidence, noting that more than 12 years had passed and asking: “The government had 12 years, more than enough time, to gather its evidence. Where is it?” He contended prosecutors would call no witness who had directly received or witnessed the alleged bribes.

The trial's first witness, Goldman Sachs vice president Amandine Martin, had previously worked on the Aksa deal team and provided background on the project. She testified that financial models prepared by Goldman projected annual profits of more than US$100 million over the life of a five-year power purchase agreement.

The jury was unmoved by the defence. After roughly three hours of deliberation, the panel found Berko guilty on all three counts.

What the US authorities said

United States Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr., of the Eastern District of New York, framed the verdict as part of a broader anti-corruption commitment:

"Today's verdict marks another significant victory in this Office's longstanding commitment to rooting out corruption. The defendant abused his access to high-level foreign government officials and his platform as an investment banker at a prestigious American firm to line his own pockets with millions of dollars."

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the DOJ Criminal Division emphasized the international stakes:

“We live in a global economy that American companies must be able to compete in fairly. This defendant corrupted that fair competition. He abused his position at a world-renowned American investment bank by helping bribe Ghanaian officials, so he and his co-conspirators, including senior executives at a Turkish company, could make money.”

FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. thanked the Justice Department and the United Kingdom for their cooperation in securing Berko's arrest and extradition.

A rare FCPA jury trial

The Berko case is believed to be just the 27th FCPA jury trial in the statute's nearly 50-year history, and the fourth since September 2025 — a reminder of how rarely foreign-bribery cases reach a jury rather than ending in corporate settlements or plea deals.

Prosecution was handled by the Business and Securities Fraud Section of the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Criminal Division's Fraud Section, with Assistant US Attorneys Jessica Weigel, Nick M. Axelrod, and Tara McGrath leading the case alongside Assistant Chief Katherine Raut and Senior Trial Attorney Katherine Nielsen.

What comes next

Berko was remanded in custody immediately after the verdict and will remain in federal custody pending sentencing. The statutory maximum he faces is 30 years in prison.

The more politically explosive question is what the trial and verdict mean inside Ghana. The evidence referenced bribes paid to a Minister of Power, a senior adviser, members of Parliament, and equipment inspectors between 2014 and 2017 — a window that spans both the Mahama and Akufo-Addo administrations. Prosecutors also referenced Berko's links to the brother of the then-president, though they did not name specific Ghanaian recipients in the public record.

Whether Ghanaian authorities pursue their own investigation into the officials on the receiving end of the “holy rain” remains to be seen. For now, the case stands as the most consequential US corruption conviction involving a Ghanaian public figure in a generation — and a sobering footnote to a career that once seemed to embody the promise of Ghanaian talent on the global stage.