The Odumase Krobo Police Command has arrested a 29-year-old man, Wisdom Kpodo, who posed as a police officer.

Kpodo was nabbed at the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Assembly toll collection point at Atua, a suburb of Odumase-Krobo in the Eastern Region, where he was operating as a police officer.

The Odumase-Krobo District Commander of the Ghana Police Service, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Harry Selormey, said his outfit received information from the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) at Lower Manya Krobo that there was a ‘police officer’ extorting money from drivers using the Kpong-Somanya road.

ASP Selormey said he quickly mobilised men to the scene and saw the suspect conducting motor checks. He was quickly arrested and brought to the police station where his statement was taken.

According to ASP Selormey, the suspect is a native of Afife in the Volta Region but has been coming from Accra, where he resides, to Odumase Krobo for the past two months to extort money from drivers.

He said the suspect was in a police uniform bearing the emblem of the Ghana Police and in possession of a police whistle, a pair of handcuffs, and an identification card of a private security company where he claimed he was working.

Kpodo also had on him a Ghana National Fire Service badge, a police beret, a torch, a kitchen knife, a toy pistol, a pair of police desert boots and GH¢19.

“Our interrogations revealed that the suspect designed his own police uniform and posed as a police officer and confidently checked motor vehicles,” ASP Selormey said.

According to ASP Selormey, the GPRTU officials who were always at the toll collection point observed the suspect for two months and concluded that the behaviour of the suspect was quite strange; hence their decision to draw the attention of the police.

He said the police would conduct further background checks on Kpodo before processing him for court.