Forty-one foreigners who were scammed into believing they would find work in Ghana’s mining sector have been rescued by the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS).
The group, which included 39 Cameroonians, one Nigerian, and one Burkinabe, were rescued at a hideout in a suburb of Techiman called Hansua.
Investigations showed that a man named Elvis, who claimed to work for Q-NET Company, was the brain behind the fake massive recruitment.
He allegedly scammed his victims by promising to secure them jobs in the mining industry in Ghana through his company. The job opportunity, they were made to believe, pays $1,000 a month with an additional daily household expenditure of $7.
According to the Bono East Regional Commander of the GIS, ACI Enock Annor Abrokwa, Elvis then asked the unsuspecting applicants to fill out a form designed with the GIS logo and pay between GH¢20,000 and GH¢50,000 as processing fees.
His strategy was to take them to an apartment where all their belongings, including money, luggage, and other personal belongings, would be taken care of, once they arrived in Techiman.
The victims were kept in a secret location and were not allowed to leave until they called a friend back home with the same job offer. The scam had been ongoing for the past two months.
One of the victims managed to send a Google location to relatives back home before his mobile phone was taken from him. This relative subsequently gave the GIS the information leading to their rescue.
The victims are being held in a holding center awaiting repatriation. The Nigerian national among them has already been repatriated to his home country after it was discovered that he had previously been arrested by the GIS in the Ashanti Region but managed to return.
The agent who led Elvis to rent the apartment and the landlord is currently on bail and assisting the police in their investigation.
The Bono GIS Regional Commander has warned landlords who rent their properties to foreigners without due diligence that both landlords and foreigners shall be liable for any offense against the country’s immigration laws.