Three arrested for internet fraud

The Adenta Police has arrested three men who attempted to withdraw money from a bank account using fake voter’s identity card.

The suspects are Thomas Addo Dankwah, aka Scare, 23, Adegbe Jerry, 26-year-old baker and Frank Sissah, 35-year-old Internet café operator. The three suspects attempted to withdraw an amount of $1000 from the bank when police apprehended them.

Briefing Daily Guide, DSP Stephen Ahiatafu, Adenta District Police Commander, said the suspects were nabbed on November 1, 2013 on the premises of the said Bank at Adentan.

The facts are that, one of the suspect, Thomas Addo Dankwah, who posed as a woman with name Lucy Sarpong on Facebook, managed to defraud a foreign friend $1000.

The money was sent through money transfer and so the suspect needed an identity card with name Lucy Sarpong to receive the money. Thomas then contacted Jerry and convinced him to let his wife use her voter identity card to clear the money for them.

The two suspects with the help of the third suspect, Frank Sissah, the Internet café operator, duplicated the original voter’s identity card of the lady and changed her name to Lucy Sarpong.

The suspects then gave the fake identity card to the lady victim to go to the said bank to cash the money.

At the bank, when the identity card was keyed into the system, officials detected that the picture on the voter identity card was the bearer, but the name was different.

The police were immediately called in by the bank officials to assist in investigating the matter. Upon interrogation, however, the lady said her husband Jerry and his friends asked her to clear the cash at the said bank using that identity card.

Police then managed to grab suspect Jerry Adegbe, who also mentioned the two as his accomplices. All three suspects are in police custody assisting in investigations.

DSP Ahiatafu said there was the need for mobile telecommunication operators to scrutinise people who used fake identity cards to register their number.

“Most of the time, when such unscrupulous persons use the fake cards to commit crime and police make a request for their data, it becomes difficult tracing them.”