2 Nabbed For GH�524,000 Fraud

A 39-year-old auctioneer, Moses McCarthy and his suspected accomplice, Victor Aggrey have found themselves in the grips of the police for defrauding unsuspecting members of the public to the tune of GH�524,000 under the guise of auctioning vehicles to them. Victor Aggrey, 54, had shown up at the CID headquarters to secure bail for McCarthy but was arrested for impersonation and forgery of documents. The two have since been caged at the cells of the CID Headquarters while investigations into their activities continue. McCarthy, after taking money from his victims whom he used as agents absconded. He was arrested by officers at the Vetting and Crime Analysis (VCA) Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters, in the morning of Friday, June 29, 2012, after the three persons lodged complaints against him at the CID headquarters. The director of VCA, Denis Abade, told Daily Guide that one Portia Fordjour, after learning of McCarthy�s intention to auction some vehicles and general goods in August 2011, expressed interest in owning one of the auction cars. She therefore introduced other clients to the auctioneer. Between October and November 2011, she acted as an agent and took some amount of money totaling GH�250,000 from the clients she had introduced the business to and gave the money to McCarthy. A second complainant, Peter Boafo had collected GH�125,000 from clients and handed it to McCarthy. From January to March, 2012, McCarthy again announced an upcoming auction event which Matilda Owusu expressed interest in and also acted as an agent and collected various amount of money from others totaling, GH�149,000, which she also gave to the suspect. The suspect, however, began to play hide and seek games with the three agents who later reported his conduct to the police. During interrogation, he conceded taking the said amounts from the complaints. He was thereafter arraigned and granted a GH�500,000 bail with three sureties, one to be justified. Later the same day, Victor Aggrey, 54, went to the Police Headquarters and presented himself as Elias Nimo Preko, to stand as surety for his friend McCarthy. He had in his possession two voter�s identity (ID) cards with different numbers 100478303 and 1251001309, bearing his photographs but with the name Elias Nimo Preko, together with an indenture marked AR/9645/12, being the number of a plot of land at Airport Residential Area supposedly belonging to him �Elias Nimo Preko�. When the detectives examined the document, they realized that Victor Aggrey had forged the original indenture of Elias Nimo Preko (the original owner of the land) and made a fake voter IDC card to aid his impersonation plan by convincing the police that he was indeed Elias Nimo Preko. Preliminary investigations on the said property showed that the land had been used to defraud prospective land buyers under the guise of selling it to them. The police chief appealed to members of the public who might have been victims of such scams to call at the VCA at the CID headquarters to assist police with their investigations.