MAN, 65, SWINDLES POLICE (PAGE 23, MIRROR, JAN 9, 2010)

From Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Takoradi

A 65-year-old man, Isaac Gyamfi, has been jailed five years by the Takoradi Circuit Court for swindling and giving false information to the police.
The convict pleaded guilty to the charges and the court, presided over by Mr Charles Nimako Bamfo, convicted him on his own plea.
According to the prosecution, the convict went about informing the police in Apam in the Central Region and Beposo, Kwesimintsim and Agona Nkwanta in the Western Region that he had been robbed of huge sums of money and vehicles.
After giving his statement to the police, he then asked for assistance to travel to his base and return the next day to assist in investigations.
That was the last time the convict would be seen at the station, after receiving the assistance from the police.
After the convict managed to collect some money from the unsuspecting police officers, he then moved to another police station to lodge a similar complaint.
Gyamfi was arrested when he was submitting his statement at the Kwesimintsim Police Station. The Station Officer for Agona, one of the stations he had swindled, walked into the CID Unit of the Kwesimintsim Police Station and was surprised to run into Gyamfi.
The convict called at the Kwesimintsim Police Station and reported that he travelled to Half Assini to transact business.
He claimed that on his way back to Takoradi, upon reaching Apowa, he asked the driver of his vehicle, an Opel Astra with registration number ER 272-09, to stop for him to respond to the call of nature.
Gyamfi told the police that on his return, the driver had left in the car together cash amounting to GH¢8,350 lodged in a briefcase.
The prosecutor said prior to that, Gyamfi had reported to the Agona police that his driver had bolted with his vehicle, an Opel Vectra with registration number ER 6578 Z and cash amounting to GH¢7,800.
Gyamfi attracted the sympathy of the police officers on duty after he told them he had no pesewa on him and succeeded in collecting GH¢70 from the contributions of officers on duty to enable him to travel to his home town to return to help in investigations.
The prosecutor said the Agona police did everything to contact the convict to help in the investigation, but all proved futile until he was identified at Kwesimintsim.
Before Gyamfi could be processed for court, signals from other offices indicated that he had visited such crime on other stations in the Central and Western regions.