DIRECTOR GENERAL CID CAUTIONS PUBLIC (Inside Pages)

Story: Mary Mensah
The Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, Mr Yaw Adu-Poku has cautioned members of the public to beware of a group of 419 operators in the country who used whitemen to fleece businessmen of thousands of cedis.
He said the modus operandi of the fraudsters was that they make fake foreign calls to the victims with the request that a whiteman in either Germany , England or the Netherlands wanted to buy either Shark oil, Moringa or Gingo seeds in Ghana.
He said the callers convince their targetted victims that the whiteman is willing to pay $450 for a bottle of the oil or a sachet of the seeds and that he knows a supplier of the goods who is either based in Koforidua, Swedru, Winneba or Suhum who sells it for $300 and you can make a profit of $150 on each sale.
Mr Adu-Poku said the caller will then linked you up with the whiteman and the supplier and will warn you that its a new lucrative business in town so if you inform anybody about the deal others might cash in on it.
He said after sometime the whiteman will call that he needed a large quantity of the products and want to know if you could be able to supply it at a short notice because he is a busy businessman.
The Director General said that if you agreed he will then inform you that he will be arriving in the country on a certain date and will give you flight number and time of arrival for you to meet him at the Airport.
While you were waiting at the Airport, a cap driver or a hotel attendant will call that a foreigner who just arrived in the country is waiting for you at a hotel or a restaurant.
When you reached the hotel the whiteman will either be drinking tea or eating a heavy lunch and he will explained that he had a lot of money on him and the Customs guys at the Airport were trying to give him problems so he called his Embassy and he was quickly whisked away to the spot.
The whiteman will first demand a sample of the product and the supplier will first collect $600 before giving it to you and when you send it to the whiteman he will tell you that this is a good stuff.
He will then inform you that he wanted about $100,000 worth of the products and he is in a hurry to purchase the goods and leave because he has a lot of businesses back home.
The supplier will not sell less than GH¢ 10,000 to you and will be willing to take post dated cheques for the rest of the money now while dealing with the supplier the whiteman will be pestering you that he was in a hurry to leave the country so you should hurry with the goods.
As soon as you part with the money to the supplier then they will all switched off their phones and if you follow up to the hotel you will be told that the whiteman came for either breakfast or lunch and that he does not stay there.
Mr Adu-Poku said every week the police received complaints from victims who happens to be well established businessmen adding that during the past week two businessmen lost ¢26,000 to the fraudsters.