Two granted GH¢100,000.00 bail each over gold fraud

An Accra Circuit Court has granted two persons a GH¢ f100,000.00 bail with one surety each, to be justified over an alleged gold deal fraud.

Emmanuel Takyi and Henry Sam Tumtuo allegedly took 10,800 dollars from Mikael Erickson, a Swedish national, under the pretext of selling him a number of gold bars.

They have denied conspiring to defraud the victim. Takyi has been charged for forgery and has pleaded not guilty.

They are to appear before the Court on March 9, 2022.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Evans Kesse told the Court that Mikael Erickson is based in Sweden, the accused persons Takyi and Tumtuo are a mechanic and trader respectively.

In June 2021, Takyi's girlfriend, named Stella Asante, met the victim Erickson on an online dating site, and in the process of their interaction, the victim showed interest in coming down to Ghana to go into gold business.

Stella, who is currently on the run, introduced Takyi to Erikson as his brother who deals in refined gold.

Takyi in turn also contacted Tumtuo and introduced him to the victim as his lawyer, and they both promised to sell 158kg of refined gold to the victim.

The prosecution said in the attempt to convince the victim that they were into genuine business, Tumtuo forged the Ghana Police Service's documents purported to have been signed by DCOP Mr David Eklu, now the Bono Region Deputy Police Commander.

Tumtuo also forged other documents in the name of Superintendent Mr Daniel Obeng, the Public Relations officer of the CID Unit of the Ghana Police Service.

The victim upon seeing those documents became convinced that the pair were genuine gold businessmen in Ghana.

The prosecution said the accused persons then went ahead and sent edited photos of gold bars to the victim, and requested an amount of $10,800 as the value of the 158kg of gold in their possession.

Erikson became convinced and paid the money into a foreign account given to him by Tumtuo.

The accused persons after receiving the quoted amount went into hiding and the victim lodged a formal complaint at the Cantonments Police Station when he did not hear from the two.

Investigations by the police led to the arrest of Takyi from his hide-out at Brekum in the Bono Region, as well as Tumtuo at Darkuman, a suburb of the Greater Accra Region.

During investigations, all efforts to get Takyi to lead Police to arrest his girlfriend Stella who initiated the deal was unsuccessful.

Takyi confessed to the Police that he used his share of the money to purchase a Daewoo Matiz Taxi cab with the Registration Number GW5403-20 whilst Tumtuo said had spent his part of the money and should be given a little time to refund it.

After investigations, they were charged with the respective offenses and arraigned before court.