Africa-Press – Ghana. An online investigations by the Economic and Organised Crime Office 9EOCO) into online fraudulent investment schemes has led to the recovery of the proceeds of crime amounting to $15 million.
Dr Dominic Akrutinga Ayine, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice announcedthis on Thursday when he took his turn at the Government’s Accountability Series at the Presidency in Accra.
He said in or around 2019, a criminal network comprising mostly of Chinese and Malaysians targeted both Ghanaian and British citizens using e-commerce websites and online fraudulent investments schemes.
Dr Ayine said the gang established a Ghanaian company in the 2019 to front their criminal enterprise; and that according to official records obtained by the EOCO, the company’s principal business was described as “general trading and online trading and marketing”.
“This is how the criminal enterprise worked: the victims were permitted to purchase products online from the company’s e-commerce website by paying a registration fee,” he stated.
“Once the victims signed on, they were encouraged to purchase investments packages which ranged from GHS770 to GHS9,240.”
He said the criminals developed attractive flyers to promote fraudulent investments and categorized the investments into VIP1, VIP 2, VIP 3, VIP 4 and VIP 5.
Dr Ayine said victims were informed that they would make fantastic earnings by operating a trading account as well as owning an online shop and trading in the company’s goods on its online platform.
He said typical of most Ponzi schemes victims were encouraged to embark on recruiting other victims through networking and referral systems.
The Attorney-General said the investment packages could also be purchased via virtual currencies; stating that the payments to the company in Ghana were either made by mobile money, cash or via a crypto wallet.
He said that the criminals produced a how-to video demonstrating how to make payment using virtual currency.
He said this video greatly assisted EOCO in tracing the crypto wallet which was used to receive the money and launder the proceeds of the criminal enterprise.
Dr Ayine said using sophisticated tools such as Chainalysis Reactor, a software used to analyze cryptocurrency transactions on a blockchain, the EOCO identified the transfer of funds into the cryptocurrency wallet linked to the criminal enterprise.
He said EOCO investigations established that the crypto wallets of the company were held on a crypto exchange platform called OKX, which was located offshore Seychelles.
Dr Ayine said as it turned out, OKX’s own internal investigations suggested that the criminal cluster which EOCO was pursuing, had been found to be fraudulent.
He said the suspicion of fraud stemmed from the fact that over a thousand transactions from this cluster originated from a particular computer IP address and from a particular location, suggesting the transactions might have been done by an individual.
He said EOCO obtained KYC (know your customer) information from OKX which showed that the owner of the crypto wallet, a Chinese national who worked in Ghana under a residence permit and also worked for the company which was used to defraud several Ghanaians and British citizens.
The Attorney-General said this Chinese individual was also named by Ghanaian victims as the person who directly received funds from them in respect of the fraudulent investment.
“Having connected the dots, EOCO managed to freeze the tainted wallets and served the freezing order on OKX. The office also asked OKX to notify the holders of the wallets,” he said.
“Realizing that the wallets have been frozen, the suspects sent emissaries to inquire why their wallets had been frozen.”
He said EOCO informed the suspects about the reasons for freezing the wallets and invited them to come to Ghana for further investigation.
He said in the course of the investigations, the company which was used to defraud Ghanaians and British victims was closed down and its operations disappeared into thin air.
He said faced with the lack of cooperation from the Asian authorities, EOCO turned to the National Crime Agency (NCA)-UK for assistance and also enlisted the services of Comply Crypto Depository, a crypto asset management and realization company based in the UK, to facilitate the transfer of the tainted virtual assets from all the four seized crypto wallets that received the virtual currency transfers from the criminal cluster, to a virtual asset custodian company called Zodiac Custody.
He said Zodiac thus worked with EOCO to hold the virtual currencies under the control of the applicant until the assets were realized in fiat value and transferred into a bank account in the name of the applicant.
Dr Ayine said EOCO then turned to Ghana’s judiciary and obtained a High Court order on May 27, to the effect that OKX should transfer all crypto assets in its custody to Zodiac and for Zodiac also to realize same into fiat currency and pay its dollar equivalent into EOCO’s Exhibit Account.
He said additionally, the High Court ordered that upon the receipt of the funds, EOCO should cater for the victims of crime.
Dr Ayine said through this approach, EOCO successfully used our local laws to freeze and recover virtual assets hidden in foreign jurisdictions.
He said as a result, on November 19, Zodiac Custody successfully converted the said crypto assets of the criminal enterprise and paid same to EOCO’s Exhibit Account in the amount of $15,191,730.13.
He lauded Mr Raymond Archer, Executive Director, EOCO, for spearheading the success story of the Office in law enforcement and fighting corruption.
For More News And Analysis About Ghana Follow Africa-Press
