Two persons have found themselves at the wrong side of the law for allegedly publishing fake news that caused panic withdrawals
The accused persons, Jeffrey Eppirim Nyame and Jeremiah Kobina Egyebeng, a blogger and IT expert respectively were said to have published an alleged false news which caused dollar account holders rushing to withdraw their savings for fear of losing their monies.
The arrest comes after the security agencies took over investigation following a report from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) alerting them to the publication.
According to the BoG, the publication had caused fear and alarm to the public and resulted in panic withdrawals at the banks.
Jeffrey Eppirim Nyame has been charged with publication of false news, Jeremiah Kobina Egyebeng, the I.T Professional, his alleged accomplice is facing charge of abetment.
Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and they have been granted GHC20,000 bail with two sureties each by the Accra Circuit Court.
The case has been adjourned to December 29, 2022 by the court presided over by Rosemary Baah Torsu which period the prosecution is expected to file all disclosures.
According to the fact of the case presented by Prosecutor, Chief Inspector, Richard Amoah, 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.
During investigations 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 as the news was still circulating on social media.
Nyame was said to have admitted to publishing the alleged false news in his cautioned statement but stated that he got the article from mynewsgh.com but investigation established otherwise and confirmed Nyame as the author and publisher.
Similarly, Egyebeng admitted to the creation of the news portal managed and used by Nyame.
Police said it investigation uncovered the involvement of other persons involved in the publication who were currently at large and efforts underway to arrest them.
By Vincent Kubi