ModernGhana editors were arrested for ‘cybercrime offences’

A raid and subsequent arrest of three editors by National Security operatives at the offices of ModernGhana, an online news portal in the country was on the basis of cybercrime offences, ABC News can authoritatively report.

The arrests follow a tip off on how a group of people(the three included) had been engaged in cyber crime activities targeted at competing websites and some financial institutions in the country.

Information available to ABC News suggests the alleged criminal activities by the three persons and some others have been ongoing for some time now with a number of media houses falling victim to these illegal activities.

The modus operandi, our source reveals, has been the hacking of email accounts and webservers of several competing websites and other traditional media houses. The stories by these media houses are intercepted and subsequently reproduced on ModernGhana.com.

The group is alleged to have attempted hacking a number of financial institutions as well, albeit unsuccessfully.

Though our source was unable to immediately confirm this particular claim, ABC News is reliably informed that other hacks perpetrated by the said individuals include the hacking of financial account information of competitors especially between corespondents, sources and stringers.

National Security officials, we’re told, are currently investigating the issues in order to establish if more people may be connected to the act.

The incident comes at a time when the Cyber Crime unit of the Criminal Investigations Department is battling with cyber related crimes – a situation costing the country millions.

According to Director of the Cyber crime unit at the CID, Dr. Gustav Yankson, Ghana lost more than $100 million in 2018 through cyber-crime activities such as mobile money fraud, bank fraud and various forms of intrusion and sextortion. This amount was significantly higher than the figures for 2017 ($69 million) and 2016 ($35 million)