Six persons arrested for robbery and fraud
The Accra Regional Police last Thursday paraded six persons for allegedly committing crimes at different places in Accra.
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They are Frank Aryee, 22, Reginald Quartey, 27, Abdul Rahman Mohammed, 19, and Bismark Telli,18, all of whom used motorbikes to rob people of their mobile phones and other items.
The remaining two, Musah Karim and Paul Jean, had defrauded a hotel operator at Oyarifa near Accra of GH¢30,000.
Two other accomplices are on the run.
Motorbike robbers
The Accra Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Mr Christian Tetteh Yuhonu, told journalists at a press conference that at about 10 p.m. on April 24, 2014, Aryee and his accomplice, Quartey, attacked a lady at Okponglo in Accra with a knife and demanded her Techno Phantom A3 mobile phone worth GH¢960.
According to him, when the victim refused to part with her phone, Aryee threatened to harm her with the knife, while Quartey parked the motorbike at a distance.
The victim was said to have thrown the phone away and raised an alarm which attracted the attention of the driver of a Mercedes Benz, Jamil Mahama, who also alerted a police patrol team.
“Luck eluded the suspects, as the motorbike was hit by the Mercedes Benz,” Mr Yuhonu disclosed, and said a passenger in the Mercedes Benz was injured as a result and was currently receiving treatment at the Police Hospital.
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The suspects are said to have admitted attempting to rob the lady of her phone in their caution statement to the police.
In the second incident, Mohammed, who claimed to be a commercial motorbike rider, and Telli, a trader, are alleged to have attempted to rob an occupant of a taxi of his iPhone 5 near Opeibea House in Accra.
Mr Yuhonu said about 8 a.m. on February 27, 2014, Mohammed emerged from a hideout and snatched the phone from the victim, who was in the front seat of the taxi and took to his heels to join Telli, who was waiting on an unregistered motorbike.
However, when the victim raised an alarm, a passer-by apprehended them and handed them over to the Airport Police.
The Accra Regional Police Commander also said the two suspects had five months earlier ambushed and robbed a lecturer at the University of Ghana and a foreigner and were on the police wanted list.
Fraudsters
On the fraudsters, Mr Yuhonu said on April 31, 2014, the police received a complaint from a man who claimed to have been duped of GH¢30,000.
According to the complainant, he received a call on April 25, 2014 from an unknown foreign phone number, with the caller identifying himself as Lama in Canada who claimed to have lodged in his hotel at Oyarifa about six months ago.
Lama, the police said, then informed the complainant that he and his business partners had US$5 million which they would want to invest in Ghana and that they would want the complainant to pick him from the airport when he arrived in Ghana the next day.
The complainant was reported to have picked Lama and accommodated him at the hotel but he was told the money was in a safe at the Canadian High Commission and that an employee of the commission would send the safe containing the cash to the hotel later.
Money in a safe
On April 27, 2014, the safe containing the supposed US$5 million was sent to the hotel by the said employee and Lama demanded GH¢2,000 as “thank you” from the complainant for the one who had sent the safe.
Subsequently, Jean and another suspect at large were introduced to the complainant as Lama’s business partners who had arrived in Ghana from the USA in connection with the business.
Lama was said to have demanded and collected GH¢20,000 from the complainant under the pretext that Jean and his partners would have to go back to the USA for an emergency meeting with other interested partners in the business, adding that the person with the key to the safe will arrive in the country later.
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“At the blind side of the suspects, the complainant had taken the serial numbers of the cash he gave to them which were in GH¢50 denominations,” the police said.
Five days after Lama had arrived in the country, he told the complainant that Musah Karim, his brother who was interested in the business, had arrived from France but was residing at the Fiesta Royale Hotel.
After meeting the said brother in person, the complainant started suspecting a fishy deal and offered to pay the hotel bills of the said brother.
However, the police who had been alerted arrested Karim and Jean when they showed up for the money, and when they were searched, GH¢550 matching the serial numbers of the money the complainant had given to Lama was found on them.
writer’s email:emelia.ennin@graphic.com.gh
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