Student Arrested For Internet Crime

A Third-year Higher National Diploma (HND) Electricals student of the Takoradi Polytechnic has been arrested by the police for creating a Facebook page with the name of the former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. The suspect, Collins Kofitse, 26, who was believed to have acted with other accomplices who are all at large, also created an organisation, Empowerment of the Masses (OFEM), and claimed that Nana Konadu was a co-founder. Facebook crime According to the Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police service, Commissioner of Police (COP) Mr Prosper Agblor, the suspects, at a point, posted on the Facebook page that Empowerment of the Masses was providing foreign university scholarships to Ghanaian students. They also claimed that they had job opportunities in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and the United Arab Emirates to offer Ghanaians. The group also demanded and obtained various sums of money from interested applicants for the scholarships, as well as the job placement abroad, he disclosed. Togo address Investigations by the police indicated that the address used by the suspects on the page was in Kara, a town in the Republic of Togo, and some of the landlines they used were all registered in Togo. A Ghanaian resident in the United Arab Emirates became suspicious when he came across the group, and knowing the advertisement was fraudulent, expressed interest in the scholarship and applied for it. He was then asked to make an initial payment for the processing of his documents, which he did. The organisers then requested more money to further process his document. At this stage, he realised he had gathered enough evidence to nail the group. He then alerted the police who lured the suspect to Accra where he was arrested but the other accomplices escaped. COP Agblor indicated that it was believed that a number of people had fallen victim to the activities of this fraudsters, and called on members of the public to report such deals to the police. Robbery In a saparate incident on June 2, 2014, personnel of the Volta Regional Police Visibility Unit on patrol within the Ho township arrested Benjamin Danso, aka Edamdo, 36, a second-hand clothes dealer, for allegedly planning a robbery A search on him revealed one well-serviced AK 47 assault riffle without its magazine, one foreign pistol and one locally made double-barrel pistol in a black bag he was holding. He is currently standing trial at an Accra circuit court with the charge of conspiracy to rob. According to the Director General, on June 7, 2014, personnel from the Anti Armed Robbery Unit, with the assistance of the SWAT Unit of Ho, arrested another suspect, Daniel Dzaglah Dzibodi, at Agotime-Kpetoe and retrieved an unmarked AK 47 assault riffle with 19 rounds of ammunitions. He was identified by Benjamin Danso as one of his accomplices in a plan to attack a depot at Ho.