MAN, 23, ARRESTED FOR FRAUD (PAGE 31)

A 23-year-old man who posed as a soldier and collected sums of money from a number of people with the promise to recruit them into the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has been arrested by the police in Koforidua.
The suspect, Lawrence Kwabena Asiedu, who claimed to be a computer engineer, was said to have paraded himself for the past one year as a soldier and succeeded in collecting an undisclosed sum of money from a number of people, mostly in Accra.
Briefing the Daily Graphic in Koforidua yesterday, the Eastern Regional Police Public Affairs Director, Chief Inspector Christopher Tawiah, said Asiedu arrived in Koforidua from Accra on May 23, 2008 in military uniform and was spotted at the Koforidua Branch of the Agricultural Development Bank in the company of two friends.
He said the suspect, who was later seen at Effiduasi, near Koforidua, and was confronted by policemen because of his misconduct and the way he wore the military uniform, initially claimed to be a soldier from Accra.
Chief Inspector Tawiah said when the policemen asked for both his pass and identity card, the suspect could not produce them, claiming that he had left the ID card in his bag at a friend’s house in Koforidua.
He pointed out that when the policemen decided to accompany him to the friend’s house, the suspect confessed to not being a soldier, explaining that he had got the uniform from a naval officer friend who had given him a number of uniforms to wash for him.
According to the Public Affairs Director, when the police invited the naval officer from Accra, he blatantly denied ever giving any military uniforms to the suspect but admitted that there had been a few occasions on which he had given his dirty Navy uniforms to Asiedu to wash.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the Eastern Regional Police Commander, ACP George Anko-Bill, expressed worry at the rate at which armed robbers undertook their operations in military and police uniforms and, therefore, asked security personnel to refrain from giving out their uniforms to civilians to be washed.