Sakawa: Ghana’s new rave in crime

Sakawa: Ghana’s new rave in crime
As global economic downturn takes it toll, many young people in Ghana are turning to get-rich-quick schemes. Most of these schemes are hatched and executed on the internet.
Evelyn Tagbo, Accra

For Asamoah, a 22 year-old resident of Accra, the good days are here. At least, so it seems. Until April last year when the United States embassy refused him visa for the fourth time in three years, Asamoah (not real name), dreamt about nothing but going to live in the United States. The mere thought of New York fascinated the high school leaver from the Ashanti region of Ghana. His uncle and his family live there. The stories his younger cousin tells him of the city thrilled him. But that was then. Things have changed.
Asamoah is no longer desperate to go to the United States. Not for now. Though he might not be living in the United States right now, he does live on the States and many other countries in Europe. (He only accepted to speak to The Business Eye, after a good friend of his assured him his identity would not be revealed.) He is presently building a four-bedroom bungalow in Dodowa, a suburb of Accra. For those who care to ask, he identifies himself as a businessman. “I am into IT (information technology) and systems installation. That’s what I do,” he says. He started identifying himself as such, after his first ‘deal’ came through and he opened a small cyber café. But that is not what is building his new home for him, he admits. “I do the obroni business,” he tells the magazine.
‘Obroni’ is a local parlance for a white person, much the same as ‘oyibo’ in Nigeria. What Asamoah refers to as ‘the obroni business’ is what is popularly known in Ghana as ‘sakawa’. It is not possible to be in Ghana since last year without knowing what sakawa means. It is the rave of the moment. In the last 12 months, the act has gained notoriety as one of the pastimes of many Ghanaian youths eager to make quick money. No day passes without a newspaper, a radio station or television carrying news on the latest act of sakawa.
Sakawa is Ghana’s equivalent of yahoozee in Nigeria – the act of defrauding people via the internet. In international criminal circles, it goes by different appellations. Computer crime, cybercrime, e-crime, hi-tech crime or electronic crime, whichever you choose to call it, it generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. According to Meshack Opoku Afriyie, a crime analyst, sakawa which literally means ‘how to make money’ in Hausa, started in Swedru,( a suburb an hour drive from Accra) where young people and even adults enticed foreign nationals with pictures of nude girls who claim to be searching for other nationals to marry.
As the magazine learnt, the modus operandi has not changed much. Essentially, Asamoah’s tactics, is to impersonate beautiful ladies through social networking sites like facebook, yahoo and msn. In each of these sites, he poses as a white lady. He scoops pictures from facebook and pornographic websites to illustrate his false identity. His pranks first paid off when a victim, a 44 year old businessman in New Jersey, United States, fell for his lies and sent him $5,000. Posing as a beautiful 24 year old lady, (whose picture he had in the fake facebook and msn chat identity he created), Asamoah lied to his victim that he was a post-graduate student from a prestigious university in the U.S, who had come to Ghana for research, but was robbed and is stranded. He gave him false campus address, agreeing that the New Jersey businessman visit ‘her’ on campus on return from Ghana. Delighted at being able to help a stranded girlfriend, the man transferred the money to ‘her’ through Western Union.
Since June last year when Asamoah got that first ‘breakthrough’, he has swindled several other victims through similar means. He confesses he has made up to $80,000 through sakawa, an amount that even bank managers in Ghana do not earn as annual income. He owns a 2002 Toyoto Corolla car which he bought 4 months ago, and as he told the magazine, hopes to complete his building in two months time.
News about young people like Asamoah acquiring fortune through sakawa, has dominated media reportage in Ghana in the last few months. “Ironically, the more the media talk about it, the more youths you see go into it. I think government needs to come out with a legislation that gives serious punishment to sakawa, otherwise, we are likely to be overwhelmed,” said Mensah Dankyi, communication officer of a local NGO.
Nima, Kotobaabi, Madina and Maamobi, all underprivileged suburbs of Accra, are most notorious for sakawa. Last Tuesday an Accra Circuit court remanded four young men: Michael Ivan Kesty, Stephen Dadzie, Godwin Aborge and Julius Nutsukpo, for defrauding a Briton of 4,000 pounds. They allegedly assured their victim that they could facilitate the purchase of 5,000 acres for a fee of £100,000. They then requested for £10,000 from their victim for the documentation covering the parcels of land. They were also alleged to have informed their victim that the remaining £90,000 was to be paid over nine years in £10,000 annual instalments.
Two of the boys, Michael and Stephen, then sent a letter via the Internet purportedly signed by the Registrar of the High Court. According to the prosecution, the victim then sent £1,400 to them through the money transfer system. The prosecution stated that Godwin and Julius, the two other boys, on their part, informed their victim that their father had suddenly fallen ill with stroke and solicited for £2,600, which the victim sent.
The victim later discussed his transactions on the purchase of the land and his donation to God­win and Julius, the accused persons, with some London-based Ghanaians. The prosecution stated that it was during the discussion that the victim was informed that the transactions were fraudulent, adding that the victim then lodged a complaint with the police and under an arrangement, the victim informed the two groups that he had sent £750 to them and asked them to pick it up. It said a team of detectives laid ambush on the premises of the money transfer organisation and arrested the four men when they showed up to collect the money.
“Sakawa is the latest craze in town and even teenagers are getting hooked. A colleague of mine in the recently interviewed a 13-year-old boy who spoke about how he poses as a woman to dupe white men in Europe,” says Ato Kwamena Dadzie, a popular Ghanaian journalist. “Thanks to sakawa school dropouts have suddenly become millionaires, driving in posh Mercedes and BMWs. They are buying houses whiles graduates who are honestly earning a living struggle to pay their rents,” he says.
Aside impersonating ladies, there is also the traditional strategy of stealing people’s credit card details and other data, or tricking them into paying for services or goods that do not exist, which has also become very popular in Accra. Initially, some locals blamed the trend on Nigerians living in Ghana, but most suspects arrested since the surge last year, have been locals, many of them students and young school leavers. What makes sakawa serious in Ghana, according to one analyst, is that, different groups of people have joined this as a quick way out. Students, the unemployed, businessmen, pastors, and even gainfully employed people are trying it out daily. These groups approach sakawa in different ways.
Many of the young fraudsters have now penetrated some money transfer outlets with enticing offers to enable them retrieve large sums of money sent to them by their victims abroad. Recently, Daily Graphic, Ghana’s state-owned newspaper, reported a case of a lady attendant at one of the transfer outlets in Accra alleged to have been compromised by 'sakawa' boys with huge sums of money in kickbacks in lieu of the presentation of correct documents for the collection of their remittances. The attendant allegedly collects 10 per cent of the amounts involved from 'sakawa' boys who present code numbers and their personal identity cards to collect money in the name of females and 20 per cent from those who do not present identity cards.
“The problem is daunting, and it's getting worse,” said Oteng Adu-Gyamfi, a businessman, who laments the dent it is casting on the country’s image. According to a recent release from the United States Embassy in Accra, Ghana ranks second after Nigeria on the list of African countries that U.S e-retailers rejected orders from last year. 76 percent of merchants in that group shut off orders from Nigeria, 58 percent from Ghana, and 32 percent from Pakistan. Other countries blocked included Indonesia, 23 percent; Singapore, 19 percent; Romania, 18 percent; China, Russia, and Vietnam at 13 percent each; and South Korea and Hong Kong with 10 percent each.
According to Emmanuel Kwablah, a journalist with a local business weekly, the biggest threat to local business is, however, yet to manifest. In recent times, increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are providing websites for the display and sale of Ghana-made products, especially those that are targetted at the European and American markets, as well as other foreign markets. “It is only a matter of time for ‘sakawa’ to extend its ugly hand to this side as well, only to jeopardise Ghanaian e-exports,” he states.
“I really think that the problem is becoming bigger. If we continue this way, we very soon will be put in a position where we cannot do any other business outside,” says Clement Dzidonu, a professor at Valley View University, Accra. Dzidonu hinted that although the youngsters engaged in such crimes employ spiritism to achieve their ends, that does not write off the country’s increasing risk profile. Rising internet fraud and business scams originating from Ghana, he warns, could weaken the country’s e-commerce credibility on the international financial market.
Although internet service providers in the country have been tasked to check the crime, Michael, a 19 year-old former online scammer, who was guest on a national radio phone-in programme last month, said it will be a tough battle. He claimed the fraudsters use special software that blocks access to their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. He recounted how some of his colleagues had been consulting spiritualists for certain potions which they used to ‘confuse’ their victims in Europe and America. “Some even die in the process of doing the charms,” he said.
Bedeviled with increasing rates of armed robbery, drug trafficking and lately ‘sakawa’, President John Evans Atta Mills, has his hands full as far as fighting crime in Ghana is concerned. Analysts say only a pragmatic crime busting strategy and a concerted national orientation effort can reverse the trend, which many acknowledge, is fast catching up with Ghana’s future generation.