Police arrest two TV station managers for promoting fraudsters

The Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service has arrested the general managers of Accra-based free-to-air (FTA) television stations, AB TV and Amen TV, for promoting the activities of fraudsters on their TV stations.

The police arrested the managers in an operation aimed at clamping down on persons behind advertisements on television stations who are engaged in money doubling and fraud.

The Cyber Crime Unit said the suspects would be charged and arraigned for promoting charlatanic advertisements "because these are adverts they knew at the time of promoting that what the adverts purported to do was not true."

According to the police, preliminary investigation showed that the suspects used their free-to-air channels to allow placement of advertisement of nefarious activities in the media and the suspected fraudsters end up duping unsuspecting people who either send money to the fraudsters through mobile money transfers or meet them personally at agreed locations to present the cash.

The Director of the Cyber Crime Unit of the CID, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Dr. Gustav Herbert Yankson, told the Daily Graphic that the Unit had observed that there were many television stations promoting the services of such fraudsters, while the police had received numerous complaints against the fraud and extortions of the 'money doublers'.

"A number of fraudsters have succeeded in duping their victims under the guise of doubling monies for them," he said.

He stated that for the first phase of the operation, "we have started with the television stations which advertise or have programmes that promote the activities of these fraudsters who claim they can double the money but end up duping people."

Dr. Yankson said: "They claim they are able to hack into systems of some international money transfer services and multiply the money they receive from people. For example, they claim within five minutes, anyone who sends a minimum amount of GH¢100 will get CH¢1,000 in return and if they send GH¢200 they will get GH¢2,000 and it goes on and on."

He added that the police suspected several persons might have fallen victim to the nefarious activities of the suspects and urged the public to volunteer information.