UK £26m Fake News No Official Arrested

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Information Minister

Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has rubbished reports that a government official has been arrested in the United Kingdom for money laundering, describing it as ‘fake news’.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has also issued a statement, saying its forensic analysis of the said audio shows the whole thing is fake and said it was working with the Police CID to arrest the perpetrators.

Over the weekend, there was a so-called BBC report that a government official had been arrested at the Heathrow Airport in London, United Kingdom, for carrying £26 million in suit cases on board a private jet into that country.

Interestingly, it was the opposition NDC members on social media who shared and jubilated over the supposed report, but it turned out that the BBC did not carry any such story.

Sophisticated Technology

Rather, there appeared to be a sophisticated way of using technology to ‘smear’ political opponents through multiplicity of fake websites and stories and over the weekend, opponents of the NPP were busily engaged in their propaganda, using computer-generated voice-overs to create BBC-sounding news.

The fake story said, “British authorities at the Heathrow have intercepted a cash amount of £26 million in suit cases flown into the country by a private jet with a key government official in President Nana Akufo-Addo’s government on board the private jet” adding, “The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) of Britain are currently investigating a suspected money laundering and have requested documents in respect of the money from the Ghanaian government.”

EU Issue

Those behind the fake news then deliberately linked it to the recent European Union (EU) directive to Ghana to close its account in Brussels over the reported non-compliance of money laundering rules under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) arrangement.

“This is coming just within days when the Belgium European giant bank the ING Bank gave notice to the Ghana Embassy in Belgium that all embassy accounts with the bank will be closed over money laundering and other fraudulent activities,” the supposed report said.

It also went on to claim that “it seems members of the government led by President Nana Akufo-Addo were siphoning taxpayers’ money into private foreign accounts ahead of the upcoming Ghanaians elections.”

Information Minister

Reacting to the supposed news, the Minister of Information insisted that there has not been any arrest of a government official in connection with money laundering.

“No Ghanaian official has been arrested with £26 million in the UK,” he said on Skyy Power, a local radio station.

Forensic Exams

In the ensuing heat, the NCSC said in a statement that the attention “of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has been drawn to an audio circulating on social media purporting to be a news report from an international news outlet suggesting that a Ghana government official has been caught laundering cash into the UK.”

“Forensic examination conducted on the audio by the National Cyber Security Centre reveals the audio was computer-generated using available technologies for fictitious audio-visual creation and manipulation. We therefore entreat the public to disregard the audio and desist from circulating such fictitious content.”

It said further that “forensic analysis by the National Cyber Security Centre reveals the audio was computer-generated using available technologies for fictitious audio-visual creation and manipulation. The centre is working with the Police CID and other security agencies to identify the sources of this and other false materials being generated and bring them to book.”

Electronic Transactions Act

The statement indicated that the “production of such information is a crime under Section 115 of the Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772) and Section 159 of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29)” adding, “The NCSC wishes to draw the attention of the public that circulating such fictitious content breaches the law under Section 76 of the Electronic Communications Act, 2008 (Act 775).”

“Law enforcement agencies have therefore been alerted about the ongoing circulation of the audio and offenders would be arrested and prosecuted under the law.The general public and mainstream media outlets are hereby advised to be on the lookout for false news items and similar fake productions circulating virally with the hope that it will be carried into mainstream media. These are common interference tactics especially generated during election seasons globally.”

EU Ambassador

On the EU’s decision putting Ghana on its blacklist, the Head of Delegation of the EU to Ghana, Ambassador Diana Acconcia, said on Asaase Radio recently that “there is no evidence of money laundering in Ghana” even though she confirmed the decision was taken in May.

She insisted that the EU would have ceased doing business with the NPP administration if, indeed, any of the appointees had been caught engaging in money laundering or funding terrorist operations.

“The fact that the account of the Embassy of Ghana in Belgium and the European Union has been closed by a Belgium Bank, that was a business decision taken by the bank. The bank was not at all obliged by the EU to close the account of the embassy,” the EU ambassador said.

“It was a business decision to apply more checks to the embassy. The listing does not affect trade, development aid and there will be no problem in paying the budgetary support and the main projects we have in Ghana…. Ghana is doing a lot already because there is the Financial Intelligence Centre at the Central Bank, among others, to check some of these things.”

Covid-19 Support

Ambassador Acconcia said the EU was advancing 87 million to the government as grant to help mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Covid-29 is a global threat but we’ve to respond together. If our partners, particularly Africa, sink then we all sink together. We’re giving out 87 million to Ghana. Ghana reached out to development partners for help and we looked around for the resources.This support is not tied to any particular action that Ghana should take. The money will be paid in a few days into the Ghanaian treasury. It will be up to the government to decide what to do with it.”

She said further that “it’s important to say that this is a grant so it does not add to the debt of the government. Basically, it is to compensate for the loss in revenue Ghana has suffered because of the pandemic. It’s an extraordinary measure of which we don’t normally do. We’ve done our own public finance management assessment and Ghana is an eligible recipient.”

Minister’s Protest

Last week, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta expressed reservations about the decision by the EU to blacklist Ghana over the reported non-compliance of money laundering rules, saying it is like “a sledge hammer thrown at us.”

“As you know, the EU put us on the grey end of the blacklist because of our discussions with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). That’s quite debilitating and so we are hopeful to be off the list in December and that the EU will also expeditiously take us out of that,” he said.

He also said that “it sometimes looked quite incongruent. When we see issues such as HSBC Bank right at your door and then we feel like a sledge hammer is being thrown at us for an event that has not occurred but in preparedness, we are moving aggressively to get that and we’ll seek your support when we get off the FAFT list that the EU reciprocates quickly.”

By Melvin Tarlue