Ghana jails 9 Nigerians for fraud
2008-03-10 07:23
Lagos - Nine Nigerians have been jailed in Ghana for faking e-mails and letters, including one from the Ghanaian president, to dupe a Frenchman out of $185 000, said reports on Sunday.
The nine were sentenced to five years each in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, on February 29 after being found guilty of fraud, according to Ghana's GNA press agency.
They were found to have faked a series of official-looking mastheads from the office of the president, the heads of police, national security and the prosecutor-general, plus the governor of the central bank.
One victim was Frenchman Gilles Gillet de Laumont, who believed an email telling him there was $8.5m waiting for him in a Ghanaian bank account if he deposited $185 000 there to cover taxes and expenses.
The email was accompanied by official-looking letters, including a faked one from the governor of the central bank.
Gillet de Laumont travelled to Ghana in May 2005 to deposit $35 000 and was expected to return in September to hand over the remaining $150 000.