The Accra High Court presided over by Justice Serwah Asare-Botwe, has convicted four (4) people to twelve (12) months in prison each for SIM Swap fraud.
Each of the convicts has also been fined 2,000 penalty units, equivalent to GHC24,000, or in default spend an additional Twenty-Four (24) imprisonment in hard labour.
Two of the defendants, Derrick Obeng alias Chilling and Ezekiel Otuo, who are both at large, were tried in absentia while the other two, Linda Abakah and Solomon Ofosu, were present in court.
The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) detained the Assin Fosu-based syndicate in April 2022 after receiving information from Fidelity Bank Ltd., Ghana indicating several other syndicates operating SIM swap and mobile banking application fraud schemes, according to the facts of the case as they were presented to the court by the prosecutor.
Further information about other syndicates operating in Assin Fosu that are involved in Fidelity Mobile Application Fraud was provided to EOCO by Fidelity Bank, Ghana on July 19, 2022.
A specific sort of cybercrime called Fidelity Mobile Application Fraud involves stealing money from the accounts of Fidelity Bank customers.
Online scammers use the Fidelity Mobile Application Fraud technique to trick Fidelity Bank customers into disclosing their phone numbers, passwords, pin codes, and OneTime Passwords (OTPs). Once they have this information, the fraudsters use it to fraudulently transfer the remaining balances from the accounts at Fidelity Agency Points in order to take control of the bank accounts, mobile devices, and electronic cash of Fidelity Bank Customers.
Agents from the banks help to the greatest extent possible in achieving this. The Bank added that 220 consumers had received phoney SMS messages posing as messages from the Bank. Out of these 220 clients, 86 became victims, resulting in a GHC 1,136,224.51.00 loss overall.
In a letter dated April 11, 2022, Fidelity Bank stated that a total of GHC 258,472.22 had been lost by eleven (11) of the bank's customers as a result of SIM swap fraud attempts. According to the information, the consumers' mobile numbers were switched by fraudsters without their knowledge so that they could use them to access their mobile banking applications and steal their money.
The clients' cellphone numbers were on the MTN Ghana network, thus the EOCO worked with MTN to track down the employees who switched the impacted numbers.
The first and fourth accused were successfully apprehended on August 25, 2022, by the office after mounting surveillance on one of the syndicates with a base in Assin Fosu with the help of Fidelity Bank employees.
Investigations later showed that the third accused had been on the run since the start of the case, while the second accused was already in EOCO custody in connection with an earlier arrest involving a different syndicate. The third suspect, who operates a Fidelity Bank agency in Assin Fosu, makes use of his position to get private information about Fidelity Bank clients and exploit it for fraudulent behaviour.