NINE NIGERIANS JAILED 5 YEARS FOR 419 FRAUD

NINE people who faked various documents, including the letterheads of the Office of The President, and used them to defraud a number of victims in Accra have each been jailed five years by an Accra circuit court.
The nine, all Nigerians and believed to belong to an advanced fee fraud (419) syndicate, also forged documents belonging to National Security, the Ministry of Defence, the Ghana Police Service, the Office of the Attorney-General, the Auditor-General, the Bank of Ghana, among others.
They include Victor Okechuku Okoye Ibuze, who is at large and was sentenced in absentia, and Ibrahim Mato, alias Edward Mensah.
The rest are Benson Nnadi, Budy Sampson, Raymond Popson, Ashanor Wright Waheed, Adeotan Oluwafemi Adenyi, Abolade Oluwaseyi Toyosi and Ekpemadu Chuku Andy.
They were convicted and sentenced to five years each on one count of conspiracy and another count of possessing forged documents, while Mato was further convicted and sentenced to 18 months on another count of forgery of passport.
All the counts are to run concurrently.
According to the facts of the case, the nine lived at Achimota in Accra and described themselves variously as businessmen, traders, computer engineers and technicians.
The prosecution said the group operated an Internet cafe at Achimota from where the convicts prepared forged documents to convince their victims that huge sums of money had been deposited in some banks in Ghana for them, for which the victims had to make payments in dollars as deposits.
Through their modus operandi, the prosecution said, the convicts convinced a French national that he had $8.5 million bequeathed to him at the Kokomlemle Branch of the SG-SSB Bank and that he had to pay 185,000 Euro for its release.
The prosecution said through some fraudulent correspondence with the forged documents, the syndicate managed to invite their victim to Ghana on May 25, 2005 and collected 35,000 Euro as part payment for the 185,000 Euro charge.
After that transaction, the victim was asked to go back to France, where he discussed the issue with a Ghanaian to whom he showed the forged documents.
The Ghanaian told the victim that all the documents had been forged and, therefore, he should report the matter to the Ghana Police, which he did.
Therefore, when the syndicate invited the victim to Ghana again on August 16, 2005, its members were arrested by the police when they went to pick him from the airport.
Upon their arrest and subsequent search, the forged documents and other items, including computers, were seized.