The Executive Director of EOCO, Mr K.K. Amoah has revealed that his unit together with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is searching for operators of Global Coin Community Help (GCCH), a scheme which took deposits of clients promising 27 percent monthly returns for a year.
The revelation emerged after the deposit-taking institution, directors and owners are said to have absconded with more than GH¢4 million of depositors’ funds.
Its emerged Global Coin Community Help (GCCH) was an unlicensed company name running as a cryto-currency syndicate who have allegedly swindled more than 3,000 people of their deposits.
The GCCH directors being sought by the security agencies are Mr. David Opatey and Mr. Kwaku Damete Kumi.
It emerged the least depositor had GH¢5,000, while the highest depositor had more than GH¢200,000 in his or her account.
The modus operandi of the scam is to collect deposits from customers and pay them a monthly interest of 27 per cent for one year or 12 months, after which the principal and interests expire, with no further obligation to the company.
Unable to pay the interest and the principal, the company migrated all depositors onto a trading platform called mintcrtx, where coins were offered to depositors based on the value of their investment and deposits.
Each coin was valued at GH¢20 and traded on the platform which was created and controlled by the owners and the directors of GCCH.
As of Thursday, November 8, 2018, a coin worth GH¢20 was trading at GH¢2 when the Daily Graphic checked. The value of a coin has never traded above GH¢20 on the platform.
At the moment, the GCCH offices in Nsawam in the Eastern Region and Haatso in the Greater Accra Region have been shut down and customers have formed pressure groups to petition state security and investigative agencies to arrest the directors of the company.
Early this month, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) warned that it had not issued licences to the following companies to carry out deposit-taking activities.
The companies are Global Coin Community Help International Limited (GCCH), Wealth Drive Ghana Limited (WDG), Devonshire Place Capital Ghana Limited, TCL Markets Ghana Limited, FX-Crypto Traders and Sonsis Susu Services Limited.
A statement signed by the Secretary to the Bank of Ghana, Mrs Frances Van-Hein Sackey, warned: “Anyone who does business with these entities does so at his or her own risk and the Bank of Ghana will not be liable for the refund of any deposit lost by a depositor.”
graphic.com.gh
