COP Timbillah, 2 others to face service inquiry

Commissioner of Police (COP) Patrick Timbillah and two other police officers implicated in the recent police recruitment scam will face internal disciplinary actions, including Police Service inquiry.

The internal disciplinary actions are without any prejudice to any criminal prosecutions that may be directed by the Attorney-General's Office against them.

This is one of four actions ordered by the Police Council yesterday.

The Police Council also ordered that the three officers implicated in the scam should remain on interdiction until the final determination of the matter.

The council also said the case docket should be processed and same forwarded to the Attorney-General's Department.

The Police Administration has also been tasked to take measures to sensitise and continue to educate the public on police recruitment processes so as to avoid re-occurrence of this incident.

On March 1, 2014, news broke that hundreds of young men and women had turned up at five police training depots for enlistment into the Ghana Police Service, but they left disappointed after they found out it was a scam.

It was found that their recruitment letters, which had the signature of COP Timbillah, were fake and that the purported enlistment was a fraud.

The police had a difficult time driving away the victims, most of them university graduates, who had gone to the Kumasi, Koforidua, Pwalugu, Accra and Ho Police depots with their luggage to begin the training.

The victims were said to have paid money ranging from Ghc2,000 to Ghc3,500 to the fraudsters.

The police have since arrested 14 people, including two policemen, as part of investigations to unmask the people behind the latest police recruitment scam.

Two suspects - Aisha Asumda, alias Aisha Boku Masi, a 36-year-old shea butter seller, suspected to have played a key role in the scam, and her accomplice, Alifa Adams - were arrested at Tesano and Adenta respectively following a tip-off.

The five other suspects include Amos Brown, 40, a radio presenter; General Corporal Gideon Sarpong of the Visibility Unit, Takoradi; Constable Ruth Agyiri, 27, Central Police Station, Koforidua.

The rest are Pastor Paul Danso from Tarkwa and Richard Harrison, 30. Amos Brown, who was arrested on March 4, 2015 in Takoradi, had allegedly collected various sums of money from about 40 people in the Takoradi area under the pretext of helping them to be enlisted in the Police Service.

The police said Pastor Danso was arrested at Tarkwa Atuabo for collecting various sums of money from people in Atuabo and its environs to get them enlisted. He mentioned the name of General Corporal Sarpong as the one who directed him to collect the money.

Harrison and PW Constable Agyiri were arrested at Adentan and Koforidua respectively for collecting money from people to get them enlisted.

Two bank accounts said to belong to COP Patrick Timbillah were frozen, pending the conclusion of investigations into his involvement in a recruitment scam.

COP Patrick Timbillah is alleged to be operating two private accounts totalling about Ghc1 million.