A 19-year-old student of Keta Business College, Obed Dzorgbenyui Adehe has been jailed thirty (30) months for leveraging on the nude photos of a supposed lover to defraud the latter.
The convict disguised himself as a female nurse from the Ho Technical University on Facebook and succeeded in defrauding his victim.
Online relationship
Adehe’s victim – also male and a Ghanaian based in the United Kingdom (UK), who at the time thought Adehe was female, exchanged contacts and started an online relationship with the convict.
According to state prosecutors, in the course of the relationship, Adehe secretly recorded the nakedness of the victim during a WhatsApp video call.
First demand
Adehe later contacted the victim with another phone number requesting him to pay an amount of $833.33 in Bitcoin in order to delete the video he had already published on social media.
The prosecutor, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Fuseini Yakubu told the Accra Circuit Court where Adehe was arraigned that out of fear, the victim paid GH¢5,020 in two tranches.
The first amount, GH¢2,000 was paid on April 24 last year and the second, GH¢ 3,020 was paid on April 27 via an MTN mobile number.
More demands
Not satisfied, Adehe again threatened the victim to buy him an iPhone 11 Pro, “else he will publish the nude video”.
It was after this demand that the victim decided to muster the courage to report the case to the Cybercrime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department in Accra.
This led to the arrest of Adehe at Tema and his iPhone XR phone used in communicating with the complainant was retrieved for forensic examination.
Adehe charged
On September 16 last year, Adehe was arraigned at the court presided over by Ms. Ellen Ofei-Ayeh.
He however pleaded guilty to the charge of defrauding by false presence while denying the charge of sharing intimate images without consent and sexual extortion.
The prosecution later decided to withdraw the charge of sharing intimate images without consent and sexual extortion after he had pleaded guilty to the charge of defrauding by false pretence.
The court, therefore, convicted Adehe on his own plea. He was then sentenced to two years, six months in jail in hard labour.
Other cases
This is not the first time a student is being sentenced for this criminal act.
In May 2020, the Accra Circuit Court sentenced a 24-year-old student of the Assin Fosu College of Education, to three years in prison in hard labour.
Francis Aggrey, who is currently serving his jail term, was convicted after threatening to circulate nude videos and pictures of his lover, a policewoman, and succeeded in extorting GH¢1,500 from her.
Prior to that, the Kaneshie District Court had sentenced a self-styled photo editor, Richmond Clement Kobina Abegya, to 30 days in prison.
The 33-year-old posted nude videos of his female friend online and used it to extort money from her.
As part of the sentence, he was asked to also pay a fine of GH¢4,800 for his criminal act.
