By Mohamed Mansaray in Kenema
Criminals in Kenema have adopted a new strategy of extorting money from people in Kenema. They used their Mobile phones to call people posing as public authorities or top business people on the pretext of transacting business. Some people have been scammed in the process.
Nancy Kamara is a business woman in Kenema City that has been scammed. Explaining her ordeal to Expo Times, Nancy Kamara said a man claiming to be a businessman called and told her that he was stranded with articles from Guinea and requested NLe 200,000/00 from her. According to her, he told him to send the money through his Orange Money numbers, adding that upon his arrival in Kenema, he would supply her the goods at a very reasonable cost. Unfortunately, it was after sending the amount she knew that it was a scam.
Mohamed Moseray, also a resident of Kenema, said on Friday, June 7, 2024, he received a call from a man alleging to be Thomas Tagbateh Baio, the Mayor of Kenema City Council, claiming that the mayor told him that personnel of one of the mobile companies came to visit him at his R.T.I. resident in Kenema. He said the alleged mayor asked him to recommend a vendor or a money transfer agent to meet him at R.T.I. According to Mohamed Moseray, the alleged mayor told him that the agent should communicate to him before reaching out to him at R.T.I.
He added that, upon receiving the message by the agent, he communicated to the mayor and that the mayor told him to meet him with NLe 7000/00. Shortly after, he said the alleged mayor told the agent to send NLe 5000/00 to a certain orange money number and then meet him with the remaining amount of NLe 2000/00 in his office at the Kenema City Council. Unfortunately for the criminal and fortunately for the agent, he knew that the process was a scam.
Copyright –Published in print in Expo Times Newspaper on Monday, June 10th , 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)