Six '419' Fraudsters Nabbed In Hotel

Six people, who are alleged to be members of a '419' fraud syndicate operating in the country have been arrested by the Police Criminal Investigations Department (CID).

A large number of fake documents, including forged letterheads of various banks, the Ghana Police Service, the Armed Forces, the Judicial Service and other companies as well as a quantity of papers cut to the size of dollar bills, were found on the suspects.

One of the documents bore the picture of the former IGP, Nana Owusu Nsiah but with the name Umar Yakubuo. He is designated as head of Defence of the Ghana Armed Forces, with the military identification number, GAF009878 and ranked GRESS/General.

The suspects include Michael Maxwell, 28, Happy Ose, 25, and Johnson Kwie, 24, all Nigerians. The rest are Jame Cluade Daniels, 27 and Benard Joseph, 23, both Ivorians and John Paul, 34, a Congolese. A seventh suspect Romeo, a Togolese, is at large.

They were arrested on monday evening at a hotel near the Accra Airport upon a tip-off that they were demanding money from an Italian they had lured into the country to purchase gold.

The victim, who arrived in the country from Italy last monday, moving with his wife, Laliberte Clamdine, 50, to purchase the gold also produced a quantity of electronically mailed documents being the correspondence between him and the syndicate.