Bright Daniels, a Nigerian, who served seven years jail-term at the Nsawam Prisons, has once again been sentenced eight years imprisonment for creating a fictitious Facebook account in the name of the Executive Director of Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), Maame Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, and succeeded in defrauding a police personnel.
Daniels was convicted by an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Her Honour Owusuaa Appiah yesterday, on conspiracy to commit a crime and defrauding by false pretence, after a full trial.
The convict allegedly conspired with another Nigerian ex-convict, Livinus Amadianaez Ugwu, to defraud police personnel using the supposed social media account of Commissioner of Police (COP) Maame Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, at a time she was serving as the Director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service.
The said police personnel was lured to pay various sums of monies to enable them to be enlisted to serve in United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) Missions, but all turned out to be false.
Facts of the Case
According to the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Emmanuel Nyamkye, COP Mrs. Addo-Danquah is the Complainant and the other accused person, Livinus Amadianaez Ugwu, is currently on the run.
The prosecuting officer told the court that Bright Daniels and Livinus Amadianaez Ugwu are both ex-convicts. He stated that Bright was jailed seven years and served his sentence at the Nsawam Medium Security Prisons.
He said in the month of April, 2021 the Complainant’s attention was drawn to a fake Facebook Messenger account created in her name – “COP Maame Tiwaa Addo-Danquah,” bearing her picture and same being used to solicit money from Police personnel under the pretence of getting them slots to UN and AU Missions in Somalia and Sudan.
Interested police personnel who contacted the user of the said fake Facebook account were directed to pay money into mobile money number 0271701436.
One of the victims of the scam, Detective Chief Inspector Anthony Baffoe paid an amount of GH¢10.000.00 to the said mobile money number and the amount was subsequently withdrawn by Daniels.
The Prosecutor said when the contact number was traced, it was discovered to be around Nsawam Medium Security Prisons, in the Eastern Region.
Further investigations revealed the identity of user of the phone number to be that of Daniels. A search conducted on him led to the retrieval of a Samsung Galaxy AOQ2 phone the convict uses to chat with Livinus, as well as a Tecno feature phone that Detective Chief Inspector Anthony Baffoe money was received on.
DSP Nyamekye added that a forensic examination conducted on the devices revealed that the convict and Livinus conspired together to use the name and photograph of the Complainant to collect money from Police personnel, under the pretext of getting them a slot to travel to United Nations and African Union Missions in Somalia.
According to the prosecutor, further investigation revealed that Daniels acquired a sim card with the aforementioned number, which he used to receive money from his victims.
Daniels admitted the offence and after investigations, he was charged and brought before the court.
