Beware: Internet Fraud Rising In Ghana and Many Other West African Countries; You Can Lose Money To Fake Transactions or Romance

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We are talking about this issue on Anonymous Headquarters, because we want our audience to be extra vigilant with anything they do on the internet, regarding business or love affairs, if the person claims to be in Ghana, or any other West African country.

The internet has made the world a global village in this era. Whereas it has made it possible to communicate to people far away from you, it has also brought some negative effects, especially in many of the impoverished countries in West Africa.

Recently, many individuals and businesses, especially in Europe and America, have been fascinated by the Advance Fee Fraud (AFF) scam that originates from Ghana. In order to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of this scam, you need to read this article with rapt attention.

The perpetrators of this AFF are also known internationally as 4-1-9. They are mostly school dropouts, who spend many hours behind a computer, either a personal laptop or at the internet café, devising creative and innovative ways to swindle their victims. A large number of victims are enticed into believing they have been singled out from the masses, to share in multi-million dollar windfall profit, or the person is a female living in Ghana and is looking for love.

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Mostly, the woman will tell you that she is not a Ghanaian, but is in Ghana for a purpose and needs money to be able to travel and join you wherever you are. All pictures and documents provided by the woman, to make you believe that she is in need of money to be able to leave Ghana are fake. The documents can be from official letterheads of the Ghana police, immigration and Foreign Affairs Ministry, but are all fake documents meant to rob you.

Previously, the criminals used to send cheap emails, outlining a story such as, someone has died in a plane crash and has left millions of dollars, or that the son of a deceased African dictator, with hidden millions, is willing to transfer the money into a foreigner’s bank account for a share. But now, they have changed their modus operandi because foreigners no longer fall for these cheap scams.

The following two examples, are some of the new ways in which these criminals can make away with your money without giving you anything.

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An Indian company which manufactures cocoa sacks, receives an offer from the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC) on an official letterhead, to supply Ghana with 200,000 cocoa sacks. The marketing manager calls the number on the letterhead and gets through to someone impersonating an official of the CMC. Then comes other fraudulent but official looking documents until the Indian company becomes convinced that the transaction is genuine. This is followed by demands for various fees to various agencies in Ghana, all backed up by official looking but fake documents. The criminals invite the company to send a representative to Ghana to sign the formal contract. The representative arrives in Ghana only to be picked up by these criminals and taken to a hotel, here the criminals make away with huge sums of money from the company. An official of the company narrated this story to Ghana’s law enforcement agencies some time ago.

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A purported  Filipino nurse (actually fake. Is a Ghanaian man) who is spending time in Ghana, meets an American or European man on the internet, especially on dating sites, and they become lovers. The lady says she is helping children in an orphanage in Ghana and sends the victim beautiful pictures (all fake), showing interest to visit him in the U.S. or Europe and starts demanding money for a plane ticket and to secure a visa. On the day of departure, Ghana immigration would not allow her to board the plane because she needed to carry some money on her. Any skepticism is answered with an official letter from the Ghana Immigration Service. The woman then tells the victim that she was bringing some gold with her and had been arrested for not paying tax on it. All these are lies designed to make more money from the victim. It is supported with fake documents, including a fake passport, fake U.S. visa, fake letter from the Ghana Immigration Service, fake letter from the Internal Revenue Service and from the Ghana Police.

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These are only two of the classical methods used by these criminals to swindle their victims. Others might also include: disbursement of money from wills, purchasing real estate, transfer of funds from over invoiced contracts, sale of crude oil at below market prices, sale of gold at below market prices, and many others. You just need to keep vigilant to avoid these scams.

Ghana used to be a country with high moral standards, but local social commentators say the influx of Nigerians in the country in recent times, are the cause of all these criminal activities on the internet. The internet fraud is worse in Nigeria, and many foreigners have come to know this, so they (Nigerians) are moving across other West African countries in order to continue to carry out these wicked crimes.

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Sadly, some of the victims cannot stand the pain of debt and bankruptcy after falling for these scams and end up committing suicide. Many arrests have been made by law enforcement agencies in Ghana, but the majority of these criminals are not prosecuted, due to the lack of evidence provided by victims who are far away and are unwilling to travel to Ghana to testify in court. The security services, in collaboration with the financial institutions, are doing their best to stop the practice. However, it seems the fraudsters are always making their way out, as the numbers keep increasing.

In 2006, the U.S. government said in a report that the country lost $198.4 million to Internet fraud, averaging a loss of $5,100 per incident. The UK also claimed that same year, that these scams cost its economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000.


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42 COMMENTS

  1. they send you private messages on fb including their emails telling u to start a relationship after some time they fake up a situation which requires u to send them money

    • This happened to me also and the scammer is from Ghana west Africa..He said he was his brother who is a USA wrestler..I lost a ton of money…

    • I’ve had 3 different guys try to do that to me on FB messaging. I didn’t fall for it. One was dumb enough to give me a supposed hospital address that when i googled it,turned out to be an animal hospital.

  2. I lost tons of money to a scammer from Ghana West Africa…He said he was his brother which is a professional wrestler in the USA & originally from Ghana West Africa…

  3. This happened December 4,2015 to me at this time they is somebody calling me now and he is asking a money to send to the immigration officer in ghana his name kadiri success i have send the money to clear that briefcase package in the immigration but now again he is calling me to pay again the storage fee in the immigration. Please help me to do something to support me regarding this matter.

  4. I received an email from Woode Financial Services wanting me to do a loan. Email is signed by a Mr. Wood Edward (CEO). He claims to be in business for 8 years but after doing some research I can not locate the company in Ghana or the Ministry of Finance in Ghana. They are wanting me to send them a down payment of $265 via Western Union.

    Any thoughts on this?

    • Look guys you will not gonna believe this. My real name is Bashkim Totaj. A bankier frome Ghana contacted me on Messenger because he saw my last name, saying this: Hi my friend my name is ***** * ******** I think god wanted us to meet. A millionaire from your country died here in Ghana in 2007 by a car accident where 35 people died(by the way the accident was real) and his name was ****** Totaj. Before he died he deposited an amount of money about 15.5m $ in the Ghana Bank.

    • So the person that contacted me was his personal banker. He says that his bank doesn’t know that the millionaire died and if they learn that he died they will get all the money for their self. So he wanted me to get the money. At the beginning I was happy and wondering what would I buy when i get rich. I prepared all the documents and send to the bank. They accepted. After a day they contacted me again by Gmail saying that the dormant account was closed because of a long non-using so I had to pay a fee of 1370€ to activate the account. Then I researched on the internet and found out that the money was real and everything was real. But when I pay the fee I won’t get the money so I almost got scammed by an African.

  5. oh me too it is happen to me. this man he told me that hes coming in dubai,he work inside the ship as an engineer. we had a relationship thru chat. i send him money too many times, now i have a problem to all my credit cards all full because of him. he promise we will go together in Australia. and at the same time we plans to go in philippines to get married. i dont know until now its still question mark.

  6. i dont know wha to say now. i know its all my mistakes because i believe on this man. please do something about this to find the thiefs in this country.

  7. Ghana has full of fraud scammers. I am chairman of a company. I have lost many thousand dollars believing a ghana person called Denis Mensah.Accra. Ghana. I have complained their country police, embassy and foreign ministry. But no use. I think their government doesn’t care of other country people.better not going and not doing any business with ghana.

    • Hello Ravisankar,

      I have been offered to bring money from Ghana for investment.
      The promised commissions are high and the amounts to bring for investment in EU is large.
      Has this been a similar case?

    • Hello S.Ravisankar,

      This is Sethu (23) student from India. I have lost many thousand dollars like you. It is very devastating that it all hard earned money. Any information regarding this scam is absolutely vital and it will be life changing.

      Thank you

      Seth

  8. I think I just got scammed….can u find out if a person is legitimate. …her name is Grace sakyibea anafo. …she has a man by the name of George asare helping her….please help me find out if this is a legitimate person

  9. I came in contact with this so called female that says she’s from Baltimore Maryland but in Ghana now..We have talked on the phone over and over again..She’s in a Hotel needing money, and vows to reimburse me my money with the Gold that her family had left her I’ve she receives money from me.She or it got document’s together and it shows that we are married..What should I say?..She/it insists on staying in touch because I have sent some money once..???

  10. I too was a victim of one of the scams out of Ghana he didn’t get my money but he did cause me a lot of problems by wanting me to deposit the checks into my bank account thank God they did not cash those checks or I would be paying back money I have learnt my lesson and and trying to help other people not to make the mistakes that I made by believing these online romance scams these people are lying you are not talking to the person you see a picture of , your talking to someone out of Ghana or Nigeria, wise up keep your money and keep your heart from being broken by these liars and scammers

  11. Yea no dougt these people are active i lost
    My mony i am retired person and i have now got nothing but hunger

  12. have chatted to a anka williams 29 from accra and she has been used as a go between her and a poor little rich girl and she has forwarded about$5000 from australia to england and all she has out of the contract is a piece of paper saying she is to be given 5% of a unknown fortune help by lawyer system in england but now if anyne was to buy the computer she is now selling oh what a gold mine as she has all downloaded on computer about her and finaces in england

  13. i believe my boyfriend is getting scam also by a laywer and a women i don t know how to stop all this been trying to tell him it a scam but he keep sending money every month nothing i can do to get him to change is mind about this inheritance the women name is bellinda torres that live in the hotel by the name of date hotel and laywer tony lithur not sure if it legal or not but don t have the money to get an investigation done

    • I can confidently say it’s a scam because of the name of the lawyer. Tony lithur is a profound lawyer and he happens to be the lawyer for the immediate past president. Just Google his name and u can confirm this.

  14. I FELT VICTIM TO SAME ROMANCE SCAM, LUCKILY IT DIDNT GET TOO FAR. I WAS SAVED BY A CYBER SERVICE INVESTIGATION TEAM. VERIFY EVERYBODY YOU MEET ONLINE BEFORE EVER SENDING THEM MONEY. THEIR CONTACT ABOVE. SAVE YOUR VALUABLE TIME AND MONEY.

  15. I also left and went by the game !!! Now it’s me that I’m going to play since nobody does anything! I’m going to shoot each of them in the head. Elephant hunt

  16. My husband has been asked to pay delivery duty for a steel box of cash which is to be sent to us from Ghana and deposit it in our own bank account we have already the keys to unlock the box. As yet we have not paid out any money but the box is coming from Arabelle Cover and Maxwell Yeboah – ring a bell with anyone?

    • Hi All, I can provide verification services against internet scammers by authenticating the sources of their documents for you. We are also in the process of launching a tool that will allow for instant online verification of documents that emanate from Africa so that you would know whether you were dealing with real authorities or fakes.

      If you are reading this and have any doubts, please email me.

  17. Looks like I have been scammed by a ghana princess who said she needed cash to fly to me. I have been texting her back and forth for 3 months. Keeps coming up with reasons for me to send more money. Her name is mammara dawuni (ann) is the name she goes by.

  18. I think I am being scammed by a woman who goes by the name of April Camarillo.She want me to buy her a new cell so that we can communicate better.

  19. I have been in contact with a lady from Germany. Her father died 6 years ago and has left a safety deposit box in the hands of a firm called Coreship logistics.apparently it contains gold that he bought when he was in Ghana. Now she wants help to pay for the back payment. Anyone got information on the firm or had any dealings.

  20. I have been contacted by Ike Brew from Facebook. He says that he love me after I chatted with him on day one. Now he wants to marry me and come to U.S. I have blocked him from contacting me, I don’t want to be scammed. Now he emailed me and sent a loan paperwork for me to fill out. Boy bye.

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