The Bono Regional Police Command have arrested eight suspects over the assault of a 21-year-old man at Kotokrom, a suburb in the Sunyani West Municipality.
The suspects told police the beating was part of the victim’s initiation into internet fraud.
According to a statement from the Ghana Police Service issued on October 9, a patrol team received a distress call at about 4:30 pm on October 4 that a group of people were attacking someone at Kotokrom.
When officers went to the scene, they found the victim, Godstime Umukoro, with multiple marks of assault on his body. The suspects were arrested there.
Police named them as Peter Mbam, 24; Godwin Moses, 26; Humble Oweifah, 18; Osas Ogbemudia, 30; Samuel Aisosa, 22; Ashile Godbess, 24; Alexander Uyuo, 30; and Patrick Romans, 25.
During interrogation, the suspects told the police they had severely beaten Mr Umukoro as part of his initiation into the internet fraud business and claimed they had gone through the same process themselves.
Preliminary investigations suggest the suspects were brought to Ghana by a man named Nwachukwu King Augustine, whom police described as their chairman.
Police said the group lures victims by using downloaded images of foreign soldiers and chatting with them under the pretext of being at the war front in Yemen. When they collect money from a victim, it is paid into their boss’s account, the police said.
