SHS graduates steal over GH¢20,000 in separate transactions through fake MoMo payment
Police arrest defrauders
Police have arrested three young men allegedly swindling a trader using a fake mobile money payment system.
The suspects, Prince Alhassan, Daniel Amoako Ampofo alias Tizzle and Richard Kesse alias Baron, all of them Senior High School graduates, are reported to have undertaken the act by ordering for goods online and opting for electronic payment via mobile money.
The suspects defraud online traders by generating and sending messages purported to have been generated from the mobile money system of a network operator to the traders’ mobile numbers.
According to a Graphic Online report, “the message is ostensibly to confirm the expected payment for the product. Victims upon receiving the alert fail to check their mobile money account balance, but proceed to hand over the product to the suspects only to find out later that they had been duped.”
The Director of the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Ghana Police Service, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dr. Herbert Gustav Yankson told Graphic Online that the three suspects were arrested after one of their victims, who is a mobile phone dealer reported his ordeal to the police.
He narrated that the suspect, Ampofo, contacted the trader who had displayed an iPhone and an Apple Watch Series 6 on an online trading platform.
“Ampofo proposed that they met at Lapaz-Papaye for payment of the items. When the trader arrived at the venue, he met Alhassan, Ampofo and Kesse in a wine unregistered Hyundai Elantra vehicle.
“They three young men then came out of the vehicle and the trader handed over the iPhone and iWatch to Ampofo for inspection.” Dr. Herbert Gustav Yankson narrated.
When the victim asked Alhassan to make payment for GH¢6,700 to the trader using mobile money transfer, he sent a message indicating an amount of GH¢6,700 had been sent to the trader’s mobile money account, however when the trader checked his balance, he found that no money had been transferred into his account.
Alhassan then showed the trader a message indicating that the amount of GH¢6,700 had been transferred from his account to trader's.
In the course of the discussion, the three young men sat in the parked vehicle and drove off with the items. They were however arrested at Lapaz following police investigation.
The police also revealed that they had used the same method to successfully defraud others of more than GH¢20,000 in separate transactions
