Another recruitment scam involving a number of young men and women has hit the Ghana Police Service.
The prospective recruits carrying their trunks, mattresses and ‘chop’ boxes and holding their appointment letters converged on a house at Amamoley, near Sowutuom in Accra ready to be conveyed to the various police depots in the country for training.
Earlier reports made available to the Daily Graphic said about 500 young men and women were given the recruitment letters and asked to report at the training depots last Friday. According to the report, those who showed up were arrested by the police.
Later, communication from the police to the Daily Graphic said three persons who were alleged to have masterminded the latest recruitment scam had been arrested and were assisting the police in their investigations.
They are Yusif Fuseini, 37, leader of the group; Baba Yakubu, 27, who acted as a middleman for the prospective recruits and Yusif and Yaw Charles, 43, whose house was used as the venue for the recruits to converge.
According to Superintendent Cephas Arthur of the Police Public Affairs Directorate, intelligence picked up by the police indicated that Yusif had passed round a message that the police had started a new recruitment exercise and that he had connections to assist them.
He said Yusif managed to collect monies ranging from GH¢1,500 to GH¢2,500 from a number of people, mostly from Sunyani and its surrounding villages.
Supt Arthur said the people started arriving last Friday with offer letters purported to have been signed by DCOP Apraku directing the new recruits to converge on Accra to be conveyed to the Kumasi depot on July 3, 2015 to begin training.
He said the police managed to lure Yakubu, the middleman, to the Ofankor Barrier where he was arrested. He later led the police to arrest Yusif Fuseini and Yaw Michael at their hideout at Amamoley in Accra.
When the house was searched following their arrest, the police retrieved a number of mattresses, pillows, trunks and chop boxes belonging to the prospective recruits.
The victims together with their belongings were conveyed to the CID headquarters to assist the police in investigations. An offer letter found on one of the victims was signed by DCOP Kwaku Apraku, with the designation as the Director General in charge of Human Resource.
Supt Arthur said the offer letters were fake as nobody in the Police Service bore that name. The “recruits” were informed that the Police Administration had made many announcements in the media to the effect that the police were not embarking on any recruitment.
According to police sources, initially when the police had the hint, they thought it was an overflow from the first scam, but investigations had revealed that the scam was a new one.
In March, this year, hundreds of young men and women turned up at five police training depots in the country for enlistment into the Ghana Police Service but were disappointed.
They found that their recruitment letters were fake and that the purported enlistment was a scam. It took the police a hectic time driving away the victims, most of them university graduates, who had gone to the Kumasi, Koforidua, Pwalugu, Accra and Ho Police depots with their luggage to begin the training.
The first scam was so well organised that all the victims were given appointment letters purported to have been written and signed by the Director-General in charge of Human Resource, COP Mr Patrick Timbilla, who was later interdicted. The victims were said to have paid money ranging from GH¢2,000 to GH¢3,500 to the fraudsters.
Despite announcements on a number of radio stations and newspaper advertisements to the effect that the Police Administration has not embarked on any recruitment exercise, people still fall for fraudulent characters and are always ready to part with huge sums of money in order to be enlisted.
The Police Administration has, therefore, called the public to be wary of fraudsters, adding that the police did not contract people to recruit on their behalf.
“Anytime the police are ready to recruit, a publication will be made in the media to enable interested persons to apply,” Mr Arthur said.
