A police swoop has led to the arrest of three Nigerians suspected to be behind the forging of fake documents such as drivers’ licences, voters’ identification cards, bank statements and police criminal clearance forms.
Police operatives, acting on a tip-off, arrested the suspects, whose names were given as Atitti Best, Iduh Joel, Solomon Eseoghene, all aged 27, in a house at Dome, near Accra.
As early as 6 a.m. on June 26, 2015, police operatives found the three suspects busy on their laptops in a house where most of the fraudulent activities are suspected to take place.The suspects are said to have forged fake documents for people for a fee and also used fake documentation to defraud people online.
Some of the documents which had the logo of the Ghana Police Service were criminal clearance certificates issued by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) bearing the signature of the Director General of the CID, whose name was given as Mr P.E. Timbila.
Items retrieved
Briefing journalists in Accra, the Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mr Timothy Bonga Yoosa, said items retrieved from the suspects included eight laptops, scanned and soft copies of documents on letterheads of state institutions and the Barclays Bank.As part of investigations, he said, two of the laptops were examined and a number of the forged documents of state institutions such as the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana Immigration Service and the Electoral Commission were found on them.
Other documents found were letterheads and signatures purporting to have been issued by the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA). Another laptop had Barclays Bank foreign account statements, logos of the bank and letters of employment for people whose names are being withheld for further investigations.
Advice
During interrogation, Mr Bonga said, the three suspects admitted that they had forged documents which had been used to defraud innocent people on the Internet. He said it was believed that the suspects might have obtained some original documents from the institutions and organisations mentioned.
He, therefore, urged institutions, especially state-owned ones, to be wary of the people they employed to work in their strong rooms in order to limit leaking of vital documentation.
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