Two grabbed for identity fraud

TWO PERSONS, Patrick Asumaning, 52, a Ghanaian, and Moses Osawaru Osaigbovo, a 25-year-old Nigerian, have been arrested by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service for allegedly engaging in identify fraud.

Both men, according to the police, substituted the original photos embedded in some Ghanaian passports and replaced them with theirs to commit crimes at some financial institutions operating in the Accra metropolis.

Asumaning was in possession of two Ghanaian passports with numbers H0971258 and H1263003, bearing two different names, Stephen Nyarko Boateng and Kwame Owusu Mensah, with the same photos, while his Nigerian counterpart possessed a Ghanaian passport number H0794177, with the name Mark Johnson.

The latter was handed over to the police in an attempt to receive $150 from a Western Union branch at Teshie, a suburb of Accra.

The teller became alarmed when the details in the passport indicated that the bearer was born on November 1, 1968. A search conducted on him, revealed his real age as 25 years. Osaigbovo was born on March 14, 1984, in the Edo State of Nigeria.

The Deputy Director-General of CID, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Joshua Dogbeda, said the 52-year-old posed as one Stephen Nyarko Boateng, an account holder of a bank in Kumasi, and withdrew the sum of GH¢10,000 at its Kaneshie branch in Accra.

On October 12, he supposedly wrote a letter to the Services and Complaints Centre of the bank (name withheld), requesting to effect a change of his so-called foreign address to a postal address in Ghana.

Police said Asumaning managed to convince whoever was in-charge, and had his signature also, changed, because, according to him, he was unable to sign his old signature.

The said letter, ACP Dogbeda, noted was supported with a Ghanaian passport number H1263003, issued in January 2002. It bears also, personal data of the true account's holder.

The suspect virtually took over the bank account of the bonafade owner, Stephen Nyarko Boateng, who lives in the USA.

Further investigation revealed that the suspect, Asumaning, had on September 24 and 27, this year, presented a Ghanaian passport (H0971258), which bore the name Kwame Owusu Mensah, to another branch of the bank at Abeka, where he again, cashed an amount of GH¢17,000.

Asumaning further went to the Abossey Okai branch of the bank on October 19, to withdraw another whooping sum of GH¢10,000 from GH¢67,860.48.

Subsequently, ACP Dogbeda explained, 'He then proceeded to the Kaneshie branch to withdraw an extra GH¢10,000, where the Bank Manager became suspicious, and demanded his Ghanaian passport, which he readily gave out.

The Manager later detected that the passport was a fake, and called for the immediate arrest of Asumaning. During investigation, Asumaning admitted to committing the offence, and mentioned an accomplice, Owusu.

He told The Chronicle he only benefited GH¢1,500 from the gig. Asumaning and Osaigbovo would soon be arraigned before court.

Meanwhile, financial institutions in the country have been advised to critically examine documents such as voter's ID cards, passports, driver's licenses and others presented to them as evidence to claim money.

Again, the CID Headquarters said criminals had now adopted new forms of attack by forcibly opening the doors of vehicles while in traffic to attack their victims.

Thus, it cautioned the public to take precautionary measures to forestall such occurrences, and drivers ought to ensure that their car doors are well secured while in traffic.