Sextortionist sentenced to 2 years for fraud

A 20-year-old sextortionist has been handed down a-two year, six months sentence for extorting GHS5,020.00 from a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian.

He threatened to publish his nude pictures if the victim failed to pay the money.

Obed Dzorgbenyui Adehe denied the non-consensual sharing of nude pictures, sexual extortion and defrauding by false pretence but was found culpable after trial.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Fuseini Yakubu told the Court that Mr Eric Avevor is the complainant/victim based in the United Kingdom as Dzorgbenyui Adehe, the convict is a student of Keta Business College in the Volta Region.

ASP Fuseini said in 2021, the convict created a Facebook account name “Elizabeth Mensah Enyram” with the display picture (DP) of Ho Teaching Hospital’s female nurse.

The complainant thinking he was chatting with a female, exchanged his contact number 447956510529 with the convict on contact number 0202171867 and started an online relationship with him.

The prosecution said in the course of the relationship, Adehe secretly recorded the nakedness of the complainant via WhatsApp video without his knowledge.

The convict later contacted the complainant with another phone number 0238509536 and requested him to pay an amount of USD833.33 in Bitcoin so he would delete the video he had published on social media.

ASP Fuseinu said out of fear, the complainant paid GHC 5,020.00 in two trenches on April 24 and 27, 2021, to the convict via MTN Mobile Money number 0548230169.

He said the convict, who was not satisfied, again threatened the complainant to buy him an iPhone 11 Pro, else he would publish the nude video.

This led to a formal complaint lodged by Mr Avevor to the Cybercrime Unit of the CID Headquarters and he was arrested at Tema where his iPhone XR which was used in communicating with the complainant was retrieved for forensic examination.