Kingpin of police recruitment scam surrenders to police

Alifa  Adams, alias Cassidy or Baaba, the 27-year-old unemployed on whose head the Police Administration placed a GH¢5,000 bounty for his alleged role in the police recruitment scam, has reported to the police.

Adams, accompanied by his lawyer, flew from Kumasi to Accra, following the publication in the Daily Graphic of Wednesday, March, 2015 that he had jumped bail.

He was interrogated by the Special Investigations Taskforce (SIT) which has been set up by the Police Administration to investigate the scam.

Adams is said to have told the taskforce that he lived in Kumasi and revealed that following the publication of his picture in the Daily Graphic, some residents started putting pressure on him to immediately report to the police in Accra or he would be arrested and handed over to the police.

Bounty

He is reported to have told the taskforce that because of the bounty on his head, he realised that it would be better to report to the police than to allow people to make money out of his situation.

The Police Administration offered a GH¢5,000 bounty to any member of the public with information that would lead to Adams’s arrest.

That was because after Adams had been arrested in connection with the scam, he is alleged to have jumped bail and all efforts to re-arrest him proved futile.

On March 1, 2014, hundreds of young men and women turned up at five police training depots for enlistment into the Ghana Police Service but left disappointed after they found out it was a scam.

It was found that their recruitment letters were fake and that the purported enlistment was a fraud.

It took the police a hectic time to drive away the victims, most of them university graduates, who had gone to the Kumasi, Koforidua, Pwalugu, Accra and Ho Police depots with their luggage to begin the training.

The victims were said to have paid money ranging from GH¢2,000 to GH¢3,500 to the fraudsters.

Arrest 

The police have since arrested eight people, including two policemen, as part of investigations to unmask the people behind the latest police recruitment scam.

Two suspects, Aisha Asumda, alias Aisha Boku Masi, a 36-year-old shea butter seller and her accomplice, Alifa Adams, were arrested at Tesano and Adenta, respectively, following a tip off.

The five other suspects include Amos Brown, 40, a radio presenter; General Corporal Gideon Sarpong of the Visibility Unit, Takoradi and PW Constable Ruth Agyiri, 27, Central Police Station, Koforidua. 

The rest are Pastor Paul Danso from Tarkwa and Richard Harrison, 30.