The Executive Director of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, has warned Ghanaians, especially the business community, to be wary of what she described as an emerging force in online businesses.
She said Internet fraud was soaring and people needed to do a lot of background checks before venturing into transactions online.
The former head of the CID unit of the Ghana Police Service has subsequently launched a campaign to clampdown on such miscreants and protect individual businesses.
Details of the measures to track the perpetrators are under wraps but she indicated that EOCO was working with various security agencies, the Telcos and the Attorney General’s office to fish such characters out.
COP Tiwaa Addo-Danquah gave the advice in Kumasi last Friday as part of her regional tour to solicit support from other government agencies to fight crime.
In the company of the acting Deputy Executive Director (Intelligence and Monitoring), Mrs Aba Jacqueline Opoku, as well as the Ashanti Regional Head of EOCO, Mr Joseph Atta, COP Tiwaa Addo-Danquah called on the Regional Police Commander, DCOP Afful Boakye Yiadom, and the Regional Head of the AG’s office, Mr Ernest Ayeh.
She said the online scammers varied their modus operandi from time to time, which called for vigilance.
Education
Subsequently, she has launched a nationwide educational programme in schools and churches to drum home the campaign.
“Funny enough, most of these online businesses are not registered with the relevant bodies, including the Registrar’s Department. I will suggest that before investing with such online traders, a little bit of background check will help,” she advised.
While rolling out measures to deal with the fraudsters, she said a lot was being done to prevent them from occurring “because if we don’t prevent it from happening, especially those who are lured with huge investment returns, they will turn around to blame the government first and then mount pressure to recover their investment,” she said.
Police command
At the regional police command, COP Tiwaa Addo-Danquah recommended information sharing among the state actors, especially the security organisations.
“No information should be considered trivial because it is when we piece them together that we are able to arrive at a credible conclusion,” she said.
She commended the police force for the support so far but called for greater collaboration to fight intellectual crime.
At the AG’s office, she suggested to the regional state attorneys to get involved in the investigation of cases “from scratch” to help present a credible docket to track such miscreants.
Source: graphic.com.gh