A farmer living at Asamankese in the Eastern Region, Felix Nyeduah, together with three others currently at large, has allegedly duped a businessman, Jones Dodoo, off GH¢868,800.00 under the pretence of selling and transporting 10 kilograms of gold to him.
Nyeduah (A1) and his accomplices, after collecting the money, supplied one kilogramme of fake gold to Dodoo and went into hiding.
The farmer is now standing trial on conspiracy to commit a crime and defrauding by false presences. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has been admitted to bail in the sum of GH¢900,000.00 by an Accra Circuit Court, presided over by Her Honour Evenly Asamoah.
He is being prosecuted by ASP Emmanuel Haligah, who told the court yesterday that the complainant, Jones Dodoo, is a Ghanaian business consultant domiciled in Tokyo, Japan.
ASP Haligah said the 2nd, 3rd and 4″ accused persons were accomplices now at large.
In the month of July, 2022, the complainant decided to venture into gold business and was introduced to Al by one Kwasi Mensah David, alias Amuzu.
The complainant then expressed interest to buy three kilogrammes of gold, but Al, knowing his malicious intentions to defraud the complainant, offered to supply about 10 kilogrammes to him on conditions that he could pay for the cost of shipment of the gold to Tokyo, and to remit the principal to him after the sale of the gold.
The complainant naively agreed to the offer made to him by Al and made payment of cash in the sum of US$25,000 to A2, who posed as the shipper. A3 later handed over one kilogramme of fake gold to the complainant and took cash in the sum of US$40,000 as collateral for the 10 kilogrammes of gold to be shipped to Tokyo.
The complainant, after payments then travelled to Tokyo anticipating to receive his gold, but was deceived by Al and A4 to pay an additional sum of US$7,000 and US$400 to A1’s agent in Tokyo before the gold could be delivered to him, which was paid.
The complainant kept the one kilogramme of gold in Ghana and was expecting to get the 10 kilogrammes for his business in Tokyo, but detected fraud after efforts to receive the consignment failed.
He returned to Ghana, but could not trace Al and his accomplices. He later tested the one kilogramme of gold, but found it to be a fake. A report was then made to the police.
On July 14, 2022, Al was arrested at Akim Oda for attempting to defraud another victim. During interrogation Al admitted all the offences in his caution statement. Investigations revealed that Al, A2, A3 and A4 were a fraud gang based in Accra.
The accused person was charged and arraigned before the court.
Investigations are ongoing to arrest the accomplices.
