Police grab mobile money fraudsters at Akyem Oda
Police at Akyem Oda have arrested two suspected mobile money fraudsters for allegedly duping an Oda based mobile money agent of GH¢2,012.
Both suspects live at Kasoa. They are Dandy Obeng Owusu, 29, a native of Kade and Eric Addae, 28, who hails from Akyem Aboabo near Oda.
Obeng Owusu, who claimed to be an expert in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), has been jailed two years with hard labour by the Oda District Magistrate Court, presided over by Mr Kwesi Appiatse Abaddo, while Addai has been remanded in police custody to reappear on February 22, 2018.
Briefing the Daily Graphic at Oda at the weekend, the Oda Municipal Police Commander, Superintendent Samuel Ntosoh, said around 10:30 a.m. on February 13, 2018, Mr George Yaw Sarpong, a mobile money agent resident near the Oda St Francis Senior High School, reported to the Oda Police that earlier in the day, he received a mobile phone call from MTN number 0240525979.
He said the two suspects introduced themselves to Mr Sarpong that they were staff of MTN mobile money at the MTN head office.
According to Supt Ntosoh, the two suspects said they wanted to educate Mr Sarpong on his mobile money transaction.
During the conversation, he said Mr Sarpong detected that an amount of GH¢2,012 had been withdrawn from his mobile wallet so he rushed to the Oda MTN office to complain to the officers about his plight.
He said the Oda MTN officers used their system to detect that the suspects were trying to withdraw the money from a mobile money merchant at Kasoa, so they linked up with the Kasoa MTN branch officers, who reported the matter to the Kasoa Police who arrested the two suspects and the Oda police took custody of them.
He said after interrogation, the police put the two suspects before court and that resulted in Obeng Owusu being sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour while Addae was remanded in police custody.
Meanwhile, the Municipal Police Commander has advised the public to be wary of mobile money fraudsters as the crime is on the rise in the country.
He urged people not to be interested in pursuing messages they receive on their mobile phones that they had won mobile money promotion as most of them were activities of fraudsters.