The National Lottery Authority (NLA) in collaboration with the Volta Regional Police Command have successfully arrested four lotto fraudsters in the Volta Region. The four are, Godwin Agbenyefia alias Demon, 19, Reuben Abusah alias Last Burial, 20, Kelvin Kwame Abouzi alias Kartel, 20 and Kingsley Adelekey who is 21 years. The accused persons were operating from Akatsi and Ho in the Volta Region.
The Circuit Court in Ho presided over by His Honor, Felix Datsomor has remanded the suspects in police custody to re-appear on September 23, 2020.
The fraudsters have created several Facebook accounts, WhatsApp platforms and other social media platforms as their modus operandi, using the logo and pictures of staff of the NLA and pictures of others to defraud the unsuspecting public.
Indeed, these lotto fraudsters have been able to convince their victims on several occasions to make mobile money transfers to them in exchange for fake winning lotto numbers.
The four, have received various sums of money from their victims in order to stake lotto numbers for them. After the Draw of the lotto numbers by the National Lottery Authority (NLA), the culprits then send photographs of FAKE Winning Coupons (Prize) to their victims suggesting that they have won.
The fraudsters then demand 20-40% of the amount of money they claim the victims had won before NLA would pay their winning tickets. Subsequently, after the victims made payments with the percentage of the fake winning prize, the fraudsters then quickly block the phone calls of their victims and vanish.
These fraudsters, most often convince their victims to send money for registration to enable them to qualify for the leaked winning numbers.
The NLA accordingly, has condemned such acts and has stated categorically that, the authority has NOT designed any Registration Forms for the public to register for winning lotto numbers.
The outcome of Lotto Draws, according to the NLA, are conducted in an open and transparent manner and the Draw is open to the general public for witnessing daily, except Sundays and public holidays.
“It is absolutely false that people and staff of the Authority have access to winning lotto numbers” the authority noted.
The NLA commended the Volta Regional Police Headquarters for a successful operation, expressing its readiness to always collaborate with the Police and other relevant security agencies to arrest lotto fraudsters across the country.
The authority cautioned the public to be more vigilant and discontinue engaging the services of such men who comes to them with no evidence as staff of the NLA.
