Dishwasher Augustine Nyantakyi (37) killed in a case of mistaken identity on Wolbrantskerkweg

Augustine Kwabena Nyantakyi (37) came from Kumasi in Ghana and worked as a dishwasher in a grand café near the Artis zoo. He was religious and regularly attended the Jesus Christ Foundation Church in Zuidoost. On the night of 27 to 28 January 2015 he worked late and afterwards went to the block of flats on Wolbrantskerkweg in Osdorp, where the woman he had been seeing for a few months lived. At around quarter past two he walked up the external stairs. There he was fired on at close range with several heavy automatic weapons. He was hit by many bullets and died shortly afterwards. Witnesses saw a car drive off. It soon became clear that Nyantakyi had not been the intended victim. When police released his photograph they said he could not be linked in any way to serious crime, and nothing pointed to a personal motive. Several men with criminal backgrounds were living in the same block at the time and could have been the target; which of them was meant to die has never been established. The gunmen had almost certainly mistaken him for someone else — something that happened repeatedly in Amsterdam in that period. The case remained unsolved. In January 2020, five years after the murder, the chief public prosecutor in Amsterdam offered a reward of 20,000 euros for the decisive tip and the case was brought back to public attention. That too produced no breakthrough.