Veep's son busted again

These were the words Farouk Mahama, the notorious son of Ghana's Vice President, uttered to his captors when he was nabbed on Monday on charges of a gold scam.

True to his words, minutes after Farouk Mahama was arrested by aggrieved businessmen, through citizens' arrest, and handed over to the Accra Central Police Station, a group of plain clothes officers from the office of the President arrived and bailed him.

Farouk, as he is simply called by his peers, together with his new found partner in crime, Kofi Nsiah, have allegedly swindled an Accra-based businessman of $27,000.00 under the pretext of supplying him with gold on April 3, 2008.

The Veep's son, who was in the company of Nsiah when the said money was taken from one Mr. Balla Maikankan, wanted to play fast on their victim, but his well orchestrated plan backfired when his victim realized that he had been swindled.

Farouk was last Monday busted by Mr. Maikankan and Mr. George Willah Ogoe, who was also searching for Farouk and Nsiah in an unrelated fraud matter near the Ecobank at Osu.

Farouk, after taking the $27,000.00 with Nsiah, went into hiding and resurfaced with the defence that Nsiah took the money and that he just accompanied him for the deal.

He (Farouk), therefore, demanded another GH¢ 2,000.00 from Mr. Maikankan with the promise of helping him to flush out Nsiah from his hide out.

Out of the amount, the victim gave Farouk GH¢ 1.000.00 on April 5, 2008 and that was the last time he heard from Farouk until he was lured into capture under the pretext of buying a vehicle from him at $9,000.

Farouk was allegedly offering a Lexus vehicle for sale at $9,000.00 so the two victims disguised themselves as prospective buyers after luring him with different phone numbers.

The two men, who had fallen victim of Furouk's scam met and grabbed him with the help of some good samaritans.

When The Enquirer got wind of the arrest of Farouk and rushed to the Regional CID, state security personnel from the Castle were there to protect the interest of the member of the Second Family.

The paper gathered that high profile men from the Castle had been sent by the second family to go and 'rescue' Farouk, as they always do.

During interrogation, which was witnessed by The Enquirer, Farouk used a number of swear words to the amazement of the police officers.

Meanwhile, Farouk has been granted bail by the police to pave way for further investigations.

Angered by his display of arrogance, the police warned him of the implications of his uncouth behaviour.

But when the victims started narrating their ordeal, their revelations attracted many more astonished observers, and that forced the police to relocate into another office to continue with their interrogations.

The Enquirer gathered from reliable police sources that Mr. Maikankan had wanted to buy some gold for some whites after visiting Dubai.

According to the police sources, Koli Nsiah was introduced to Mr. Maikankan as a gold dealer and that he (Nsiah) gave out some small quantity to be tested at the Precious Mineral Marketing Company (PMMC) which proved to be genuine gold.

The Sources said that after that the two parties agreed that an amount of $27,000. 00 would be paid for a consignment and that Nsiah told Mr. Maikankan that the supplier of the gold would come from Nsuaem.

The paper gathered that the supplier turned out to be Farouk, who brought the gold to Nsiah for onward transfer to Mr. Maikankan and that was the last time Mr. Maikankan saw either Farouk or Nsiah.

Fuming with anger at the station, Mr. Ogoe, who could not understand the persistent denial by Farouk, let the cat out of the bag when he told the police that the two alleged fraudsters recently rented his Toyota saloon cars for ten days but refused to bring his cars back to him and that he only managed to retrieve his cars with the help of the police.

But Farouk refuted that claim, saying that he had no idea about the cars and that he had no hands in that 'deal'.