Anderson Ofosuhene Anim
There was no show at the trial of Anderson Ofosuhene Anim, aka Mario G, the administrator of Empressleak Ghana, a pornographic website, as an Accra High Court adjourned the case.
The accused person was arrested for leaking the sex tapes of many victims and demanding huge sums of monies from them in order to take the videos down from the website.
The accused is facing four charges including publication of obscene material, child pornography, extortion and money laundering.
The court presided over by Susana Eduful had at the last sitting warned the prosecution that she will be forced to discharge the accused person at the next court date if they failed to make progress in the matter.
This was after the prosecution led by Inspector Princess Tetteh Boafo prayed the court for a one month adjournment to enable them conduct further investigations.
But the prosecutor and the defense lawyer, Yaw Dankwa, were both absent from yesterday’s proceedings whilst the case investigator, Detective Inspector Emmanuel Ansah told the court that investigations were still ongoing.
The judge subsequently adjourned the matter to December 15, 2020.
Arrest
Mario G has been accused of using the porn website to publish nude pictures and videos of people and extorting money from them.
He was arrested on July 30, 2020 in a joint operation by the Cyber Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department and the Ministry of Communications.
He is said to have operated the website for the past six years from his home in Osino in the Eastern Region.
The suspect was arrested whilst he was in the act of uploading nude pictures and videos of some victims onto the website.
His arrest followed six months surveillance by the security agencies to track his activities.
Modus Operandi
Victims are made to pay between GH¢500 and GH¢2000 through a mobile money account before their pictures are taken down from the website.
Despite the huge sums of money the victims are made to pay, the victims continue to receive threatening calls from others believed to be accomplices of the accused who have downloaded the videos and in turn make demands for monies in order to get rid of the videos.
The accomplices allegedly build acquaintances with the victims through social media platforms including dating sites using fake identities.
They then coerce the victims to share nude pictures or videos of their sexual acts which are secretly copied.
The police are making efforts to arrest the accomplices of Mario G.