A self-styled businessman, who has eluded the police for 10 years after allegedly duplicating cheques of big companies in the country and cashing large mounts of money from a number of banks, has finally been grabbed. The Visa Fraud Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) which arrested the suspect at the Ring Road Central Branch of Barclays Bank, where he had gone to cash GH¢48,500, said Gilbert Mensah, the 35-year-old man, has six aliases, namely Kwabena Frempong, Theophilus Osei, Ryan Glover, Aggregates Hanson, Wilson Kwaku Mensah and Francis Koomson. It said shortly before his arrest, Mensah had withdrawn GH¢38,000 from the accounts of a leading company in the country. At the time of his arrest, he had in his possession three Ghanaian passports bearing his photograph but with different names and occupations. According to the Commander of the Unit, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Francis Baah, on August 14, 2009, the suspect posed as Ryan Glover and presented a cheque with a face value of GH¢48,500 to be drawn on Geoyan Enterprise’s account at the Ring Road Central branch of the Barclays Bank. He said as a routine, the branch manager called the account holder through the telephone numbers he provided on his mandate file to confirm payment and the receiver who claimed to be the account holder authorized the payment. The suspect’s account was then credited with the amount but the manager suspected foul play, so he decided to hold the account for a day but the suspect became impatient and proceeded to the Nima branch of the bank to withdraw the money. The Manager at Nima also became suspicious and asked the accused why he had deposited a cheque into his account at the branch but wanted to cash the money which had already been credited in another branch. DSP Baa said the Nima branch manager also called the Relationship Manager of Geoyan Enterprise for further verification and it turned out that the account holder did not authorise any payment. Investigations revealed that on August 14, 2009 at about 2pm when the cheque was presented at the bank, the account holder had a message on his cell phone, which read “Limited Service” and thereafter it became inactive. Around that same time he realised that an attempt to make a call on his land line gave the message that it had temporarily been disconnected. The next day, when he made enquiries at the Vodafone office at Achimota, he was told that someone came to the office and asked that the two numbers should be blocked whilst a new card is obtained. The commander said the account holder was shocked because he had not been to the office of Vodafone to block his business lines. Source: Daily Graphic/Ghana