How Prisoners �Chat� With Officers On Facebook

Investigations conducted by our reporter, Samuel Ansah Boateng, into how inmates at the Ankaful Maximum Security Prisons use contrabands to defraud unsuspecting victims, whilst serving long jail terms under tight security conditions have taken a new twist. Your authoritative paper, per facts gathered, can report that some officers �flirt� on facebook (social media) with some of the inmates. Readers would recall, that yours truly, last Wednesday, 10th September 2014, under the banner headline �INSIDE ANKAFUL PRISONS�.INMATES DEFRAUD VICTIMS�POSE AS PEACE-KEEPING OFFICERS TO PREYS�, published the story of how a convicted convict, one Samuel Oye Mensah, at the Ankaful Maximum Security Prisons, whilst still serving a 45-year jail term on a robbery case, is defrauding victims, one to the tune of GH4, 000. Although the means by which Samuel Oye Mensah sneaked a mobile phone into the prison yard remains a puzzle, further coat-and-dagger investigations have revealed former prison Officer, Lance Corporal John Jessie, as one of the officers the fraud kingpin had be-friended on Facebook since 2004. Our checks on John Jessie revealed he is currently working with the PAYDU Water Works in Cape Coast, after leaving the Prisons Service, for reasons only known to himself. On the same social media, one other officer, neatly dressed in service uniform, Lance Corporal Bernard Annor, stationed at the Ankaful Prisons, was also in the friends list of the prisoner. Interestingly, Samuel Oye Mensah had posted a picture of a particular young man on his Facebook timeline on 8th March 2014, and in the course of our investigations we gathered that the picture was registered with another Facebook account named Seraline Stephanie; who was apparently a friend to Samuel oye mensah. In the friends list of Seraline Stephanie, another prison officer also popped up as Jackson Berko; giving a rising suspicion that the fraud kingpin maybe working with a cartel of prisoners and outsiders , and perhaps had connections with some prison officers. During investigations, the paper gathered that Oye Mensah�s mother is one Felicia Brago, a resident of Kumasi-Ejisu, in the Ashanti Region, and that he was a half Nigerian, as his father hailed from Nigeria. When his mother, Madam Felicia Brago was contacted, she said she had had enough of Samuel Oye Mensah, and that �upon all that he has gotten himself into, he is still not remorseful.� He further confessed to have played various roles in defrauding unsuspecting victims with the use of a mobile phone and his Facebook account, and that he used the monies he accrued from the fraud business to cater for himself. On Monday, May 19, 2014, a 27- year- old Zenabu Alidu, was caught trafficking Indian hemp to two inmates, Masahudu Mukeedi and Ali Mohamed at the Ankaful Prisons, only by dint of dedication and expertise from prison officers who were then on duty. Your authoritative paper can confirm on authority that the Ankaful Maximum Security Prisons is under-resourced, has no detecting machines, to check visitors and prisoners before entering the prison yards. There are fixed CCT cameras, but a thorough check by our reporter, Samuel Ansah Boateng, indicated that the Cameras were not effective. We also noticed there were no proper computerized data on prisoners; a situation which made it difficult to identify fraud kingpin, Samuel Oye Mensah, until we traveled from Accra to Ankaful Prisons, to confirm. After several meetings with high-profile officers at the Ghana Prison�s Headquarters in Accra, DSP Vitalis Aiyeh, the Chief Public Relations Officer for the Service said the issue of trafficking contrabands into prisons cells had been a major problem to the Service, and that there were records which proved that unscrupulous officers had even aided prisoners in such criminal acts. She said even if prisoners, by other uncertain means outsmart officers and sneak contrabands like mobile phones into the prison yards, the �jammers� would interfere with the network and stop it from functioning.