After the Bank of Ghana issued its first fraud alert on MMM Ghana, the country’s e-crime bureau is calling for a far-reaching and decisive action on the Ponzi scheme.
Since the scheme opened its shop after the collapse of MMM Nigeria in last year’s December, more than 10,000 Ghanaians are estimated to have joined the scheme. Bank of Ghana, the country’s apex financial regulator only spoke out last week with a stern warning.
However, analysts at the e-crime bureau advised that Bank of Ghana being the apex financial regulator should partner with international anti-crime organizations such as the Interpol to dismantle the complicated structure of MMM Ghana.
Citifmonline.com, a local news website quoted the Principal Consultant at the e-Crime bureau, Albert Antwi Bosiako, who said:
“In terms of going after them if they are not legally registered to operate as a business, Interpol system provides a good platform…there has been a bit of work and certain protocols that different countries could follow and bring the perpetrators to book,”
He added that:
“Some of these operations are registered and legally they are active in some jurisdictions so you will also expect some kind of collaboration between the Bank of Ghana and that of other jurisdictions to monitor and eventually bring the activities of these organisations under some control”.
Unlike the modus operandi of MMM Nigeria, MMM Ghana has a registered address called a ‘corporate office’ located at ‘Ghana Airways Rd, Accra, Ghana’. They also have a GSM phone number which suggests the operation is more brazen.
The e-crime bureau has not disclosed if they will be getting a legal injunction to shutter the Ponzi operation. Before it collapsed in Nigeria, MMM had over 3 million members according to its official figures. With a population of 28 million people, it seems MMM Ghana might not get as popular as it did in Nigeria. A Ponzi scheme analyst told PageOne.ng that the smaller the investor base in the scheme, the faster for the ‘house of cards’ to crumble faster than expected