Three Nigerians and a Ghanaian have been busted by the police for allegedly impersonating the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mr John Kudalor, to defraud two policemen of GH¢300 in Accra.
They are Samuel Iwochukwu 23, footballer; Mathew Ushie, 24, actor; Timothy Egwu, 23, a private Security Officer, all Nigerians and Haruna Danlad, also a private security man, a Ghanaian.
The suspects were said to have created a Facebook account, using the name of the IGP asking police officers to pay monies into a bank account to facilitate their appointment to the United Nation Peace Keeping Mission.
Their modus operandi is that they sent friend request to police officers asking them to pay various sums of monies into an account in order to help them get appointment to work with the United Nation Peacekeeping Missions across the globe.
The Director of the Cyber crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, Chief Superintendent, Dr Herbert Gustav Yankson, at a press conference told journalists that on July 14, the Cybercrime Unit detected a Facebook account created in the name of Mr Kudalor.
He said the account was requesting police officers to pay various sums of money into a bank account number 0241623119341 to facilitate their appointment to United Nations and African Union Missions.
The Director said on July 15, Danlad was arrested upon intelligence reports gathered and he led police to arrest Egwu, Ushie and Iwochukwu his accomplices at their hideout at East Legon and Circle in Accra.
He said investigations revealed that Iwochukwu and Ushie conspired and created a facebook account in the name of IGP Mr. John Kudalor.
He said “they used the IGP’s picture in uniform as profile picture and later contacted Egwu and Danlad to provide bank accounts numbers into which their victims were directed to pay money into”.
Chief Superintendent Yankson said investigations revealed that the fake facebook account had attracted a total of 497 friends mostly police officers adding that so far, two policemen had fallen victim to the scam and an amount of GH¢300.00 paid into the said account.
The suspects, he said, were in custody and assisting the Police in investigations, adding that they would soon be put before court for impersonation.
Chief Superintendent Yankson warned the general public that the IGP had no facebook account and that the public should ignore any friend request on facebook in the name of the IGP.
He advised the public especially police officers that UN selection and appointments were not done through social media.
He urged the public to be wary of social media accounts of high profile personalities asking their friends and followers to pay money for contracts, employment or favour.
Chief Superintendent Yankson said victims of such scams should report at the Cyber Crime Unit, CID Headquarters, to assist in investigations.
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