Raymond Archer

Raymond Archer is a Ghanaian investigative journalist and anti-fraud specialist who heads the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO). He was born on 5 March 1976 and turned 50 in March 2026. His family comes from Akatsi Tatorme in the Akatsi South District of the Volta Region. President John Mahama appointed him Acting Deputy Executive Director of EOCO in February 2025 and promoted him to Acting Executive Director on 23 April 2025. It is an unusual full circle: in 2010 he worked as a United Nations consultant on the drafting of the law that created EOCO.

The Chronicle and The Enquirer

Archer trained at the Ghana Institute of Journalism and made his name in print. He worked as an investigative reporter and later editor at The Ghanaian Chronicle, then founded The Enquirer, which he edited and published. Both papers built their reputations on exposing corruption in government and business, often through long investigations that named powerful people.

His Chronicle series on a deportation scam, three articles titled "Ex-Minister in deportations scam", "Tragedy of youth deported for cash" and "Swedish Minister resigns over Amarkai's scam", won him both the Africa Prize and the Gold Medal of the 2002 Lorenzo Natali Prize, run by the International Federation of Journalists with the European Commission. He was 26, and Ghanaian reports describe him as the first African and the youngest journalist to take the Gold Medal. The year before, his article "Kangaroo Police Station Inside Burma Camp" earned a Natali commendation, and he was co-winner of the 2001 Best West African Journalist award from the West African Journalists Association. The Ghana Journalists Association named him Best Investigative Journalist for 2003/2004.

Security and fraud work

Archer moved from newsrooms into intelligence and fraud investigation. He qualified as a Certified Counter Fraud Specialist in the UK, and his published credentials list postgraduate study in intelligence and security and in leading innovation and change in the UK, diplomas in criminology (UK), national security and the application of intelligence (Israel) and private investigations (USA). He was a fellow of the Les Aspin Center for Government at Marquette University and of the US State Department's International Visitor programme.

He has worked as an international risk consultant in corporate intelligence and investigations, including for KPMG Europe, Kroll & Associates in the UK and Risk Analysis UK, and has run his own businesses, among them cybersecurity firms and Universal Label and Packaging Company. Since 2019 he has led the Opponent's Research Group, a covert investigative team that looks into financial misconduct.

ORAL and EOCO

In December 2024, after the election, Mahama named Archer to the five-member Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) team alongside Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, former Auditor-General Daniel Domelevo, retired police commissioner Nathaniel Kofi Boakye and lawyer Martin Kpebu. The team was asked to document alleged looting of state resources under the previous government.

Weeks later Archer moved to EOCO, which became one of the most visible arms of that drive. His predecessor, Abdulai Bashiru Dapilah, was moved to the National Security Secretariat in April 2025. On 19 March 2025 EOCO officers arrested Kwabena Adu-Boahene, former Director-General of the National Signals Bureau, and his wife at Kotoka International Airport over alleged misuse of state funds, an operation Archer personally oversaw. Other former appointees followed.

In August 2025 EOCO seized a yellow 2019 Lamborghini Urus from the home of the dancehall star Shatta Wale, after US authorities asked Ghana to trace the car to the proceeds of a fraud committed by a Ghanaian jailed in the United States. Shatta Wale was detained on 20 August 2025 and released on bail of GH₵10 million.

Family

Archer's father, Charles Kwesi Archer, known as "Master Archer", died in 2025 at the age of 77. He was buried privately at Akatsi Tatorme, with funeral rites at Wassa Akropong in the Western Region in May 2025.

2026

In September 2026 EOCO obtained a High Court warrant to arrest the Manhyia South MP, Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah, over alleged unauthorised transactions at SIC Life Savings and Loans; the MP reported himself to EOCO on 1 October. In October 2026 Shatta Wale revisited his own 2025 detention by EOCO on stage at ShattaFest, accusing the authorities of selective justice.