Flagstaff House orders search, arrest of fraudster

The Flag Staff House has ordered for search and arrest of Peter Sowatey, who posed as a National Security operative from the seat of government and defrauded a Chinese national of GHC36,000.

An unimpeachable source at the Flag Staff House told The Chronicle that the order is targeted at charging Sowatey with impersonation, when arrested.

The alleged fraudster, who has gone into hiding and would not answer his phone calls, after he was granted police inquiry bail, lured the Chinese lady, Luo Zian, 62, into parting with GHC36, 000 (USD equivalent of 10,000 at the time), with a promise to using his supposed influence to secure her a mining license.

The source said the high interest in the arrest of Sowatey by the “Big House” is intended to serve as deterrent to the number of persons who are allegedly defrauding unsuspecting persons of their hard-earned resources.

The source continued that the Flag Staff House was worried that similar stories of people impersonating state officials under the pretense of securing them jobs, state vehicles, lands and the like, in exchange for huge sums of monies are common nowadays.

He, however, advised the general public to be more wary of people who offered them deals that seemed too good to be true and possibly report such persons to the rightful authority, or at least cross-check such promises. “The prompt reaction to the story shows how serious authorities at the Flag Staff House are treating this publication and will follow through to the logical conclusion of this matter,” he noted.

It would be recalled that the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service arrested Peter Sowatey, who posed as a National Security operative at the Flag Staff House and defrauded a Chinese of GHC36, 000 – under the pretext of securing her a mining license.

Sowatey, 30, later described at the seat of government as a “goro boy”, after duping Madam Luo Zian, turned round to inform her that the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, wanted to arrest her for allegedly making derogatory statements about the number one gentleman of the country, so she should go into hiding.

A highly placed source at the CID headquarters, who confirmed the story to The Chronicle, said the Chinese arrived in the country about five years ago and went into partnership with a Ghanaian to work on a mining concession at Gwira Bamso in the East Nzema District, near Axim, in the Western Region.

According to the source, after working for about seven months, there was anti-galamsey operation sometime in October 2015, which affected the concession and so she decided to go for genuine documents to enable her to work without infringing on the country’s mining regulations.

Along the line, Madam Zian was introduced to Sowatey by a Chinese, named Wang, who claimed that Peter, the ‘goro boy’, was a Presidential Staffer, and to convince the woman, the fraudster was wearing a National Security Identity Card of the seat of government.

The source continued that Sowatey, during discussions with Madam Luo Zian, said he could secure a mining license for her and thereby demanded that she parted with USD10, 000 which the woman gave its Cedi equivalent of GHC36, 000 to enable him to facilitate the process.

Barely two weeks after collecting the amount in October 2015, Sowatey started playing hide and seek with the Chinese woman, by not answering her calls.

Sometime in November 2015, Sowatey invited her to a place in East Legon and informed her of an ‘order’ allegedly issued by the President of the Republic for her arrest, because the security operatives had wind of derogatory remarks she reportedly made about him.

He, therefore, asked her to go into hiding and change phone numbers, to which she obliged to avoid being tracked by the state security agencies because she was on their radar. Information of Sowatey’s machination against the Chinese was reported to the CID headquarters for action.