By Membui Emmanuel

A senior police officer, Mohamed Lahun, Inspector and Officer in Command (OC) at the Rokel Police Post was yesterday 16th November, 2021 arrested and currently detained at the CID headquarters in Freetown for using a fake Facebook account with the name of the Foreign Ministry, Professor David John Francis to fraud people.

Reports say on 2nd October 2021, Inspector Lahun used the fake account to text one business woman named Mary Kaillie who sells phones and other electronic devices at Bathurst. He told his victim that he will be traveling to the United States and wanted to assist the woman in buying and delivering her goods without paying flight or DHL fee.

He collected USD $2,000 from Mary and after 9 days, (On 11 October, 2021) he text Mary again with an international number and requested for another USD $500. He claimed that he has some business opportunities which he wanted to seek for the lady.

So he sent one of his boys who identified himself as Michael Francis, claiming to be the younger brother of Professor Francis, to collect the money.

Yesterday 15th November, 2021, reports state, the OC again requested for another $1,700 dollars from the same woman with claim that the goods have arrived and that he needed to clear them at Queen Elizabeth Quay II with the said amount.

Fortunately for Mary, he discussed the issue with her brother and they both met with the OC at Mary’s house with the aim to collect the money at night. At the scene, there were three men, Mohamed Lahun, Michael Francis and another gentleman whose name was not discussed.

Inspector Lahun was arrested and the other two men managed to escape.

Preliminary investigations so far at the CID proved that Inspector Lahun and others have been running a criminal cartel with fake Facebook accounts of prominent people to fraud business men and women.

They also promised people jobs, traveling passports, oversea travels and scholarship for huge sum of money.

Currently, the matter is with the CID and the Cyber Unit who have discovered mobile phones registered with different Foreign Numbers used to fraud people.

AIG Lahai at CID headquarters in Freetown is one of the senior police officers handling the matter and the Inspector General of Police has committed to set an example on such criminal racketeering gang within the Sierra Leone police.