Some five police officers at Osu, are about to cough up an amount of GH¢3000, they extorted from two men after planting wee, a narcotic substance in their car.
The officers, stopped the two men around a police checkpoint near Advent Press, not far from Kingdom Book Shop, Osu Accra, under the pretext of a routine search, but midway through the search, they claimed to have found wee in the car, a Mercedes-Benz car and quickly arrested the two occupants, one of whom goes by the name Caesar.
The incident which happened on March 28, 2024, had one of the occupants of the car, quickly handcuffed and dragged to the Osu Police Station, while the other was coerced into negotiating a payment plan with the officers under the threat of public exposure through media channels.
Led by a police chief inspector named Glivey, the officers allegedly demanded a hefty sum of GH¢5000 for the release of the victims.
Despite the victims claiming to possess only GH¢500, negotiations contiuned into the night, until a settlement of GH¢3000, was reached for the victims to have their freedom.
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One of the victims, who is a resident of the UK, and had since left Ghana, was forced to transfer money from his bank account in the UK and convert it from pounds sterling into Ghana Cedis to pay the officers for his freedom.
Interestingly, they had refused to receive the money into their MOMO account and, therefore, drove Caesar to the home of a MOMO vendor in the middle of the night where the money was cashed out and handed over to them.
The MOMO transaction, sighted by The Herald, revealed that two withdrawals were made at the vendor called “My Faith”. The first was an amount of GHC2000, while a GHC1000 was also withdrawn. The explanation was that the police officers had rejected the GHC2000, insisting on GHC3000.
After the payment, the officers drove Caesar back to the police station, where his other colleague was released from the handcuffs and allowed to go home.
He left Ghana the next day to his base in the UK very traumatized by the horrific incident.
The Herald’s information is that, the planting of illegal drugs on people by police officers as a pretext to extort money from them, is very rampant in the Osu areas of Accra.
This paper is equally informed that, the police administration is aware of the issue, but has over the years merely transferred the errant officers and only for a new administration to bring them back to base to continue their nefarious ways.
Interestingly, the head of the station, according to The Herald’s sources, has commenced an investigation into the matter and is about to retrieve the sum from the officers. This was after the officers, had claimed that the two men simply gifted them the money.
It’s unclear, what the Dampare administration, will do to the officers now that the matter has gone public.
Observations are that, the Vendor does such transactions for the police officers regularly and, hence could be woken up from her sleep by the police and their victims to cash out their unearned money.
