5 in custody over alleged TikTok scam using names of Ghana First Lady, Ibrahim Mahama, Asamoah Gyan
Four of the accused — Ahmed Mensah, Ebenezer Ato Mensah, Bernard Mensah and Blessed Sam — were remanded after pleading not guilty to the charges against them.
Five young men, one of them a juvenile, have been placed in custody by the High Court in Accra over an alleged online fraud scheme that prosecutors say used fake social media identities of well-known Ghanaian personalities to deceive victims out of more than GH¢500,000.
Four of the accused — Ahmed Mensah, Ebenezer Ato Mensah, Bernard Mensah and Blessed Sam — were remanded after pleading not guilty to the charges against them. The fifth accused, whose identity is being withheld because he is believed to be underage, was sent to a juvenile detention facility. All five are due back in court on 14 April.
According to the prosecution, the group operated a coordinated impersonation scheme on TikTok and other online platforms, creating fake accounts in the names of figures including Lordina Mahama, Ibrahim Mahama, actor-politician John Dumelo, footballer Asamoah Gyan and Twum Barima.
Investigators say the aim was to exploit the public recognition attached to those names in order to gain trust and draw in victims.
The alleged fraud hinged on claims that anyone who downloaded an application called Trust Wallet and paid money into the system would later receive much larger returns, sometimes supposedly in foreign currency. Prosecutors say those promises were entirely false.
The first four accused, including the juvenile, are facing charges of defrauding by false pretence under the Criminal Offences Act. Blessed Sam is separately accused of obtaining an electronic payment medium by false means under the Electronic Transactions Act.
Their lawyers asked the court to grant bail, but the prosecution opposed the application and Justice Halimah El-Alawa Abdul-Basit ordered that all five be kept in custody for now.
In presenting the case, prosecutors said the accused had been acting together since 2024 and had built a network of fake social media and email accounts to make the operation appear genuine. The prosecution says those accounts were used to contact unsuspecting members of the public and persuade them to send money in exchange for activation codes or supposed access to funds waiting in digital wallets.
The state further alleges that the money collected from victims was channelled through mobile money accounts under the control of the accused and later spent on personal assets, including a house, a vehicle, a motorbike and mobile phones.
Police say the five were arrested on 31 March 2026. In their cautioned statements, investigators claim, they admitted creating the fraudulent accounts and taking money from members of the public under false pretences.
