Pastor, Indian Nabbed For Visa Fraud

Adu Alex Odei and his Indian accomplice, Raj Pal, in police custody

A 31-year-old pastor of Believer's Power Ministry located at Amasaman in the Ga West municipality, has been arrested together with an alleged Indian accomplice for visa fraud.

The suspects, Pastor Adu Alex Odei and Raj Pal, allegedly defrauded two Indians of various sums of money, including $1,000 and €1,750 under the pretext of securing them visas to travel to the United States of America and Schengen countries respectively.

They allegedly went and forged fake visas with intent to collect more money from the victims when the police uncovered their plan and apprehended them in Accra.

The two are now in the custody of the Documentation and Visa Fraud Unit of the police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) assisting in investigations.

Confirming the story to DAILY GUIDE, DSP Seth Sewornu, head of the Documentation and Visa Fraud  Unit, said the two suspects were nabbed upon investigations but another person believed to be their accomplice whose name was being withheld, was being hunted for by the police.

He said in the month of September 2015, Raj Pal lured the complainants (name withheld) from India to Ghana under the pretext of securing visas for them to travel to the USA and Europe.

Raj Pal then collected a total amount of USD$1,800 and 1,750 Euros from the complainants together with their passports claiming he was going to start the process of securing the visas.

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According to DSP Sewornu, Pal later told the victims that he had finished the process and that they should pay extra $5,000 to him before he would hand over the passports to them.

To buttress his point, Raj Pal gave photocopies of the supposed visas as proof to the victims.

The victims, who doubted the authenticity of the visas, reported the matter to the police.

When Raj was apprehended, he mentioned the name of Pastor Adu Alex Odei as the one to whom he gave an amount of $4,000 for the processing of the visas.

When Pastor Odei was arrested, he also mentioned the name of the third accomplice as the one who received the money but the visas were not secured.

When the passports of the victims were recovered from the suspects by personnel of the Immigration Service for the purpose of checking the authenticity of the visas, they were seen to be fake.

The two have since admitting the offence and would be processed for court soon.

By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey
( [email protected] )