Fraudster Busted

A man believed to be in his late forties has been arrested by the Accra Central Police for defrauding a Danish citizen of $100,000 under the guise of assisting him to purchase dried cocoa beans from COCOBOD.

The alleged fraudster, Nana Yaw Apea, is said to have falsified documents to convince his victim into believing that he was a cocoa buyer, certified by the Ghana COCOBOD and thereby robbed him of the colossal amount.

According to the Regional Police Commander, DCOP James Opong-Boanuh, Nana Yaw was introduced to the complainant, Finn Jegara, a Danish national by some friends of his about seven years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Through various discussions that went on between the two for the while, Nana Yaw agreed to help Finn purchase cocoa through COCOBOD when he expressed interest in the Ghana cocoa market.

The usurper, made his victim aware that he had registered a cocoa buying company with the name Adkodrill and showed him documents including license from COCOBOD among other documents signed by the company's deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Finance and Administration, Mr. W. Mensah.

Armed with this information, Jegara who worked with Global Commodities in Germany ordered for the shipment of 500 tones of dried cocoa beans at the price of $900 per 1000kg.

The shipment which was to be effected not later than January 21, 2008, however, did not materialize.

With all sorts of documents backing his claims that COCOBOD was directly involved, Jegara was patient until Friday, July 25 when a friend led him to the offices of the COCOBOD only for the Deputy CEO to detect that the documents were faked.

The suspect was traced and arrested at Asylum Down in Accra.

He has since been kept in police custody and would soon be arraigned before court whilst further investigation was being carried into the matter.

By Rocklyn Antonio