It doesn’t matter where you hide in the datasphere, blogosphere, or any sphere on the internet, the amateur cyber fraudster will locate you.
It is their craft and they have time for you. They make it their religion to groom a prospect until they fall into their net.
To them, the internet is a net to catch unsuspecting surfers, and they cast their net very wide.
In your emails, they track you and fill up your inbox with messages in various guises.
They are in your face on Facebook, in between your legs on Instagram, and on twitter (now X), they put an axe on your very life.
At first, you ignore their messages because they look like awkward bait which mostly end up in your spam. Occasionally, one trickles through your inbox.
You seek refuge on Christian sites, hoping they will respect the Holy Spirit, but they wait for you there in their omnipresence. They see themselves as gods on the net, and they dictate the rules of engagement.
Those who fall into their tracks look stupid, but you only get to appreciate your own vulnerability when they share their pain.
It could be anybody, even you, when you are dealing with a diabolic principality.
Range rover gifts
Who might these fraudsters be? In a little over a month, the FBI has flushed out some dodgy Ghanaians from the USA for their roles in scams and corrupt deals involving colossal amounts, while initiating moves to flush a lot more from Ghana into America, to answer questions about millions of dollars in transactional fraud.
In one instance, a grand jury indictment ensued in Arizona in the USA, has charged a Ghanaian citizen with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
The FBI found that from 2013 to 2023, the Ghanaian allegedly worked with a criminal syndicate to dupe some Americans in romance fraud and fake inheritance gold deals.
He is known in big circles as Dada Boat, a rich man who flaunts his Rolls Royce around and gifts Range Rover vehicles to fans. He has money. Loads of it.
Inheritance fraud is where a strange cyber creature sends you a juicy proposal about huge sums of money and property bequeathed to them by their dead uncle or father.
They need your seed money to unlock the millions for a big share.
In another case, the FBI busted an alleged sakawa Chairman for masterminding massive fraudulent schemes involving $100 million through business email compromise and romance schemes.
The District Court for the Southern District of New York, the same court behind the conviction of socialite Hajia for Real, is seeking to extradite the king of fraud, another heavily connected Ghanaian also called Kofi Boat, to face charges in the USA.
In business email compromise schemes, intelligent fraudsters create fake business addresses with the names of genuine businesses, and use that corporate identity to dupe other companies and individuals.
They create websites that look exactly like the original company’s. www.nestleghana.com could be rendered as www.nestleghana.com.gh with accompanying emails.
The MD’s signature? That is easy for the baby fraudster.
24,000 victims in 10 years
The American intelligence agencies have been monitoring them for years, and last week, the Minister of the Interior, Muntaka Mubarak, commenced proceedings at an Accra Magistrate Court in accordance with Section 7 (1) of the Extradition Act of 1960 (Act 22), for warrants for the extradition of Isaac Oduro Boateng, Inusah Ahmed, Derrick Van Yeboah and Patrick Kwame Asare, to the USA.
The FBI estimates that more than 24,000 Americans may have fallen victim to internet fraudsters from places like Ghana.
The victims are mostly whites, usually rich older adults whose vulnerability and loneliness may have been exploited in romance scams.
These victims may include African-Americans or even Ghanaians.
Meanwhile in the Ghanaian Parliament, our Honourable members vigorously debated another alleged fraudulent scheme at the Ghana Embassy in Washington involving a Ghanaian citizen, Fred Kwarteng, who is alleged to have pocketed $4.8 million annually in a carefully planned courier scheme.
According to the Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Kwarteng, who had been employed at the Embassy without the necessary bonafides, made it impossible for Ghanaians to apply for a passport online without going through his personal company, where applicants ostensibly paid the Embassy.
In effect, the money allegedly went to him, and the Embassy didn’t benefit.
No average Ghanaian
In the heat of the exchanges on the floor of the House, the Majority Leader, Mahama Ayarigah, summed up the reputational dangers Ghana risks and the colossal shame that confronts our country if the Ghana brand is associated with corruption both home and abroad.
The leader seemed to be saying that it is enough embarrassment dealing with graft and sleaze within our borders; we should at least do better when we travel abroad.
He described it as exporting corruption, a not-too honorable description we have borrowed for the title of this edition.
Some 15 years ago when I attempted to define the average Ghanaian in these columns, I failed to imagine the detestable aspects of the Ghanaian character, such as our appetite for greed, corruption and competition.
What do Ghanaians look like? How many fingers do they have, to be able to type out persuasive but fraudulent messages to steal from people who once looked to Ghana as the Glorious Home All Nations Admire (GHANA).
Years ago, the Ghanaian character did not give space to wealth exhibitionism, internet armed robbers masquerading as scammers, and wicked minds on church pews.
Today, we export corruption and import shame.
Tissues Of The Issues
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
Kwesi Tawiah-Benjamin
Ottawa, Canada
