Crime & Punishment of Sunday, 24 August 2014

Source: The Chronicle

26-year-old imposter jailed

A 26-year-old imposter, Patrick Nii Agya Totoh, has been sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment by an Atebubu Magistrate Court, presided over by Mr. Joseph Hamidu Nasigri.

Patrick Nii Agya Totoh was arrested by the Atebubu police when he presented himself as a staff from the office of the Chief of Staff, a medical doctor and an attaché to the first Lady’s office at the Presidency. Briefing the media, Superintendent Joseph Atsu Dzinaku of the Atebubu District Police Command disclosed that the police got the hint of the imposter’s activities of using the aforementioned offices to dupe people of huge amounts of cash for over a year.

Superintendent Atsu Dzinaku told the media that the imposter stays in Accra, but has a girlfriend at Atebubu. He also used to be an agent of the Kumasi branch of Fidelity Bank. Superintendent Dzinaku said the imposter had told the girlfriend at Atebubu that his father died abroad, leaving him a cash amount of GH¢10 billion, which had matured for transfer into his personal account.

However, before the amount could be transferred, he needed to pay GH¢1,500 to his insurance company in Kumasi. The girlfriend then informed her senior brother, who then spoke to the suspect on phone, but the brother of the lady was alarmed, and upon suspicion alerted the police. It was then arranged that the lady would send the money to Kumasi in person.

The imposter, Patrick Nii Agya Totoh, responded to the bait by travelling to Kumasi to meet his girlfriend to collect the money and was arrested. After the arrest, the convict admitted to his interrogators that he was not a staff from neither the office of the Chief of Staff or that of the First Lady.

The police later established that the 26-year old fraudster had carried out his activities in the Techiman, Kintampo, Nkoranza and Atebubu areas, whilst the suspicion of committing these fraudulent acts in other regions cannot be discounted.