Nine Nigerians were on Friday, February 29, 2008, sentenced to five years' imprisonment each for forgery. The nine forged letter heads of various ministries and state institutions in the country. They were found guilty of conspiracy and possessing forged documents. They are Ibrahim Mato a.k.a Edward Mensah, Benson Nnadi, Budy Sampson, Raymond Popson, Ashanor Wright Waheed, and Adeotan Oluwafemi Adeniyi. The rest are Abolade Oluwaseyi Toyosi and Ekpemadu Chukwu Andy. They pleaded not guilty but the court after the trial found them guilty and convicted them accordingly. Mato was additionally sentenced to 18 months for possessing forged passports. Victor Okechukwu Okoye Ibueze, aka Chairman, who has been on the run, was convicted in absentia. The court further ordered that computers and accessories used in committing the crime be confiscated to the State. The convicts were found in possession of letter heads and certificates from the Ghana Police Service, National Security, Office of the President, Attorney General’s Department and Ministries of Defence, Interior, and Finance and Economic Planning. Others were Narcotics Control Board, Auditor General, Bank of Ghana remittance certificates, SG-SSB certificate of remittance, Controller and Accountant General's Department Internal Revenue, and the International Commercial Bank. Prosecuting, Deputy Superintendent of Police, George Abavelim told the court the complainant in the case was a French national, whilst the accused persons were all Nigerians who claimed to be businessmen. They also claimed to have expertise in computer engineering and were resident at Achimota, Accra. DSP Abavelim said Ibueze was the leader of the gang described as an advanced free fraud syndicate commonly known as “419” with the rest of the convicts as members. He said the syndicate had an internet café at house number 10 at Achimota manned by Popson, and Waheed Toyosi who are all computer experts. The syndicate also had a workshop at Alogboshi where their faulty computers were repaired and which also served as home for the rest of the convicts. The prosecution said the syndicate had for some time now used their café to prepare forged documents with which they lured victims into believing that huge sums of money were deposited in some banks in Ghana in the victims’ names. They therefore collected monies from the unsuspecting people to process the collection of those monies from the banks. Prosecution said the complainant, Gillet de Laumont Gilles was convinced by the accused that he had 8.5 million dollars bequeath to him at the SG-SSB Kokomlemle branch. They demanded 185,000 dollars from him to enable them to facilitate the process for him to take the money. Through some fraudulent correspondence and the forged documents Gilles was invited to Ghana. On 25 May 2005, Gilles paid a sum of 35,000 dollars as part payment in the presence of Ibueze, Mato, Nnadi, Sampson. The convicts told Gilles to go back to France and return later to Ghana with the balance by which time the money would have been ready. Prosecution said in France, Gilles discussed the transaction with a Ghanaian who told him that all the documents given to him had been forged. Gilles was advised by the Ghanaian to report the matter to the Police in Ghana. On August 16 2005, Ibueze invited Gilles to Ghana and he was met on arrival by some of the convicts who had parked their Honda CRV and Toyota vehicles at obscure places near the Aviance Cargo Village. All this while the police had been trailing the criminals and monitoring their movement. They were later arrested at their hideouts at Alogboshie, near Achimota. When their premises was searched, forged official document, computers and accessories, eight Ghanaian passports with two of them bearing the photographs of Mato with different names were retrieved. Prosecution said Nnadi later led the police to the “Office” at Achimota where they retrieved 10 computers, stationery, files with different names and assorted forged documents. Source: GNA