The Accra Circuit Court has granted GHC20,000 bail with two sureties each to the perpetrators in the false publication of the Foreign Exchange Account and Foreign Currency Account holders’ information that circulated on social media on October 27, 2022.
This false publication caused panic among most Ghanaians, especially the dollar account holders in the country.
The accused person, Jeffrey EppirimNyame, a blogger was charged with false publication, whiles Jeremiah KobinaEgyebeng, an I.T professional, was alleged to be his accomplice and was also charged with abetment. They were arrested by the police after an investigation was conducted which confirms the publication was false. The two have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The information sparked a mad rush of foreign account holders to withdraw their monies from the banks to avoid being affected by the new directives.
The management of the Bank of Ghana cleared the misconception on October 28, 2022, for citizens to rest assured of the safety of their accounts as the information was declared fake.
The court presided over by Justice Rosemary Baah Torsu has arrayed the hearing of the case in court on December 29, 2022.
In the quest on how the perpetrators were arrested, the Chief Inspector, Richard Amoah disclosed to the court “the police gathered cyber intelligence on social media indicating that on October 27, 2022, Nyame published an article on his news portal called reportghana.net captioned, ‘Dollar account holders to get cedi at BOG rate for bank withdrawals effective 31st Oct?’ and shared same on various WhatsApp groups and social media platforms causing fear and panic among the general public”.
In the cause of the investigations, Chief Inspector Amoah said “it was established that Egyebeng initially created the news portal for Nyame called reportghana.com in the year 2019 which was used for the publication of similar articles but was closed down by Google for violating their community standard due to complaints received from users”
“However, Egyebeng again created a similar news portal but this time changed the domain from “dot com” to “dot net” and registered it as reportghana.net on February 11, 2022, to be able to use same for publication of articles and happenings in Ghana.
“After publishing the said false news, Nyame then shared the publication on WhatsApp group platforms including “reportghana news feed 1,” “reportghana news feed 2,” “reportghana news feed 3″ with over 160 active members where he was the administrator with his personal telephone numbers 0551993013 and 0574144388 registered on the platform,” he added.
Furthermore, the Police indicated that investigations have shown that others were also involved in the unlawful act and those persons will be arrested to face the law.
According to the police, the accused persons have admitted to the false publication and alleged they found it on a different online portal media platform but later realized it was fake news.
The Police are urging all citizens to ensure that they make the country a safer place for all.
