The Director of the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Ghana Police Service, and also the Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dr. Herbert Gustav Yankson has circulated a notice to the public. He said that, the three young suspects named; Prince Alhassan, Daniel Amoako Ampofo alias Tizzle and Richard Kesse alias Baron, all of them Senior High School graduates, were arrested after one of their victims who was a mobile phone dealer reported his ordeal to the police.
The three senior high school graduates who are now suspects make their online operations by ordering for goods from traders. At the time of payment, they suggest to make electronic payment via mobile money(momo).
Upon delivery of the product, they generate a message of a successful momo transaction. Afterwards, they send this false message purported to have been generated from the mobile money system of a network operator to the traders’ mobile money account.
The message is ostensibly to confirm the expected payment for the product.
Upon receiving the alert, most victims fail to check their mobile money wallet to view their account balance, but proceed to hand over the product to the suspects only to find out later that they had been duped.
The Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dr. Herbert Gustav Yankson said one of the suspects, Daniel Amoako Ampofo alias Tizzle, contacted the trader who had displayed an iPhone and an Apple Watch Series 6 on an online trading platform.
Tizzle proposed that they met at a Papaye branch in Lapaz for payment and collection of the items. When the trader arrived at the venue, he met Alhassan, Ampofo and Kesse in an unregistered Hyundai Elantra vehicle. The car reportedly was in a wine colour.
They three young men then came out of the vehicle and the trader handed over the iPhone and iWatch to Tizzle for inspection.
Ampofo then asked Alhassan to make payment for GH¢6,700 to the trader using mobile money transfer.
Alhassan sent his self-generated message to the trader, indicating that an amount of GH¢6,700 had been sent to the trader’s mobile money account. However, the smart trader upon checking his account balance, found out that no money had been transferred into his account.
Alhassan showed the trader his message to support his stance that the amount of GH¢6,700 had been transferred from his account to trader’s.
In the course of the discussion, Prince Alhassan, Daniel Amoako Ampofo alias Tizzle and Richard Kesse alias Baron, sat in their parked vehicle and drove off with the items.
After this happened, the trader contacted and reported the police, and investigation began.
The Police made investigations, it was found out that their modus operandi was to copy previous messages from mobile money transfers sent to them. The three SHS graduates were arrested afterwards.
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