The Ghana Postal Services Ltd. has for the past six weeks been facing a spate of fake postal orders encashment and the company has so far lost about ?20 million to this scam, writes The Free Press.
According to the paper, cases of fake postal order encashment has so far been reported from post offices at Kaneshie, Asamankese, Takoradi, Aburi, Accra Central and Akim Oda.
Sources close to Ghana Post revealed that the fake postal orders were in the ?40,000.00 denominations and management was contemplating withdrawing the ?40,000.00 denominations from circulation until the source of the fake ones had been discovered.
The source revealed that so far one person had been jailed whilst another person was facing trial for cashing fake postal orders.
Giving details, the source stated, that on June 27 this year, one James Kwabena Opoku was arrested at the Asamankese post office when he attempted to cash ?200,000 worth of fake postal orders in ?40,000 denominations. He was arraigned before the Asamankese Circuit Court the next day and jailed for 10 years.
In another incident, one Takyi alias Agya was also arrested at the Accra Central Post Office for attempting to cash ?2.4 million worth of fake postal orders and is currently facing trial.
At Takoradi, a student was arrested for attempting to cash fake postal orders and when interrogated he said it was sent to him by his mother, who on contacting admitted having bought them from the Kaneshie Post Office.
Some staff at the post office have also been invited for questioning.
Top management at Ghana Post are tight-lipped over the affair but a source revealed that letters had been sent to all post offices nationwide to be on the lookout for these fake postal orders, whilst the ?40,000 denomination is being temporarily withdrawn from the system.
