Police beg for more time over visa fraudsters

State prosecutors are asking for more time to complete investigations into the case in which three persons suspected to be members of a passport and visa falsification gang are being tried.

The accused persons are Moses Lamptey, aka OBK, 69, trader; William Kofi Mensah, aka Gaye, 45, businessman; and Eric Nyamekye, 35, aka Rasta, an artist.

According to Chief Superintendent Duuti Tuaruka, the prosecution was yet to complete investigations into the case.

But Bannerman Williams, who repeated his earlier application for bail for his client, described the excuse of the prosecution as an over-flogged statement which ought not to be entertained by the court.

He said the prosecution had failed to tell the court that it needed to remand the accused persons in order to complete the said investigations.

Alex Abban, who is the lawyer for Gaye and Eric, said even though his clients were on remand, there had not been any occasion when they were called upon to assist the police with investigations.

It is the case of the prosecution that the accused persons, on January 22, 2016 in Accra, conspired to forge and forged official documents.

Also charged with possessing official documents, altering official documents and forging other official documents, the accused persons were allegedly arrested with 181 Ghanaian passports and 13 other passports including that of the Netherlands, Nigeria and Britain.

The trial judge, Aboagye Tandoh, remanded the accused in police custody until February 22.

The judge was hopeful that the prosecution would not come to court asking for more time again.

Personnel of the Regional Police Command received information that the accused persons were engaged in the falsification of fake passports and visas around Anyaa, Kokomlemle, Bubiashie and Bortianor Base.

A search conducted on Moses revealed one printer, 60 Ghanaian and other national passports, one median passport and a Sanyo recorder.

For Gaye, 135 Ghanaian and international passports, 69 rubber stamps used for visa application, 41 police CID clearance forms, 41 police CID seals and two lamination machines were retrieved.

At the residences of Rasta in both Anyaa and Bortianor, a Toshiba laptop, three coloured Dell printers, an HP external hard drive, five different countries’ rubber stamps used for documentation and visas, and binary code charts used in calculating codes for fake passports were found.

The accused persons admitted the offences, stating that they made the visas for their clients to outwit embassies.