Fake Doctor jailed 12 Years

A self-styled doctor has been sentenced to a total of 12 years imprisonment by an Accra circuit court for fraud.

The convict, Kofi Agyeman-Duah aka Dr. Prince Boakye Da-Costa, succeeded in defrauding his victims of various sums of money under the pretext of assisting them to beget babies.

According to the prosecution, Dr. Boakye in January 2013 at Kantamanto in Accra, with intent to defraud, took GH¢5,000 from one Peter Osei Sampong, insisting that he was a medical doctor who could assist him to medically reproduce.

The prosecution, led by ACP Moses Atibilla, claimed that the accused, using a similar modus operandi, defrauded Emmanuel Kwame Djan Owusu of the sum of GH¢4,700 and one Regina Owusu aka Afua Anima, of GH¢ 5,000.

Appearing before the court presided over by Mrs. Ellen Vivian Amoah, Dr. Boakye denied the offence but the court, after full trial, convicted him.

The trial judge accordingly jailed Dr. Boakye three years each on the four counts of defrauding by false pretences – to run concurrently.

Mrs. Amoah however, discharged the convict on the first charge of practising medicine without authority.

At the beginning of the trial, the senior police officer had stated that all the complainants in the case are traders at Kantamanto and Okaishie respectively, while the convict is an unemployed self-styled doctor resident at Ayigbe Town in Accra.

ACP Atibilla said the complainants individually had problems with fertility and in 2013, they came across Dr. Boakye who told them he was a gynecologist at Lister Clinic at Airport, also in Accra.

He stated that Dr. Boakye made the victims believe that he could help them to medically overcome their problems and as such, collected the aforementioned sums of money from them and gave them some medications.

ACP Atibilla noted that the complainants used Dr. Boakye's drugs for some months only to realize that he was not a medical doctor.

The police officer indicated that a report was lodged to the police leading to the arrest of the accused person, adding that a search conducted in his room revealed some injection drugs, laboratory and X-ray reports of the complainants and other victims.

The prosecutor said stethoscopes, pictures of Dr. Boakye dressed as a doctor and some books with the inscription 'Dr. Prince Boakye Da-Costa,' were also found.

ACP Atibilla said the accused denied being a doctor but admitted having administered some drugs to the victims because he worked as a pharmacy attendant at various pharmacy shops.

By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson
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