Gifty Amofa, GNA
Accra, Oct. 05, GNA –
Forty-three judges and magistrates were on Friday trained on mobile money fraud
in Accra to enable them to deal with the issues as they appear in the courts.
Made up of District,
Circuit, High and Circuit court judges, the participants were taken through the
Mobile Money Eco-System, Mobile Money (MoMo) Operations, the Criminal Justice
System and MoMo Fraud, Situational Analysis of MoMo fraud, understanding the
MoMo fraud typologies and modus operandi of criminals.
It was jointly
organised by MTN, Judicial Training Institute and E-crime Bureau, a Cyber
Security and Investigation firm.
Justice L. L. Mensah,
Justice of the Appeals Court, advised the judges to be fast and effective in
the prosecution of cyber fraud in order not to leave any room for perpetrators.
“I dare say that the
prosecution must be commensurate with the speed with which they siphon money
from their victims,” he stated.
Justice Mensah said
there was the need to give priority to prosecuting those involved in mobile
money fraud to assure the international community that Ghana was safe from
mobile fraud.
He said resourced
persons at an international study tour for Supreme and Appeals court judges
from Anglophone West Africa expressed worry about how the region was noted for
cybercrime and money laundering among others but had few prosecutions and
convictions.
This means the
international community was monitoring the judiciary and legal regime as to how
it was confronting such criminal activities, he said.
Justice Mensah said
the workshop was timely as it would retool participants to enable them to take
the challenge of expeditiously and effectively prosecuting miscreants.
He called for a
concerted effort between the National Security Centre and other stakeholders in
the security space to deal firmly with mobile money fraudsters.
“Since the MoMo was
introduced about a decade ago, there is no doubt it had contributed to national
development in terms of revenue generation and employment. It is fast,
convenient, efficient and generally safe,” he said.
It, however, came with
challenges, whereby miscreants wanted to cheat the system as well as rob MTN,
companies and individuals of huge sums of money instead of helping make the
system better with their God-given talents, he said.
Justice Mensah said
the problem with cyber fraud was serious because it widely spread, making
fraudsters to re-engineer their game to beat the high security that the MTN
employed to minimise fraud.
He urged MTN to be at
the forefront in fighting crime by creating public awareness about the dangers
posed by cyber fraudsters and help in prosecution and conviction, and said
every single conviction, when publicised, would deter others.
Mr Eli Hini, the
General Manager of Mobile Money Limited, MTN, said in dealing with mobile money
fraud, the workshop was to create understanding among key stakeholders such as
the media, police and judiciary to enable them to educate the public, enforce
the law and prosecute respectively.
Mr Philip Danquah
Debrah, the Business Operation Manager of E-crime Bureau, said the workshop
would complement the Ministry of Information’s cybercrime month awareness
introduced in October.
The training would be
extended to the regions, he added.
GNA