Two donate counterfeit dollars to church

The Airport Police are holding two persons for allegedly attempting to donate some United States dollars suspected to be fake to the Mary Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church at the Airport Residential Area, in Accra.

The Accra Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Efia Tenge, gave the names of the suspects as Emeka Ibe, a Nigerian, and his Ghanaian counterpart called King Saka.

According to her, the suspects presented the suspected fake notes to the priest in-charge and that investigation revealed that it was a bait to defraud the church.

She said the incident occurred on Thursday and some irate residents of the area tried to lynch them in front of the church but had to be rescued by the police for safekeeping and interrogation.

According to ASP Efia Tenge, the briefcase they were holding contained what the police suspected to be machine and pieces of paper they supposedly used to print the fake US currency.

The Police PRO said preliminary investigations showed that about a month ago, Emeka Ibe and King Saka contacted the priest and harassed him with prayer requests.

After sometime, according to police investigation, the suspects told the priest that they were going to assist the church with cash donation.

When the suspects opened the briefcase in the presence of the priest, he (priest) saw some pieces of paper, some smeared with black ink, shaped like dollars and other dollar notes.

The priest immediately became suspicious and asked the suspected fraudsters to wait for him, but unknown to the alleged criminals, he had gone to order the security man to lock the main entrance to the church whilst he telephoned the police.

Sensing that the priest might be up to some tricks, the suspected criminals tried to flee the scene but they were overpowered outside by some residents who had been alerted probably by the security man.