An Accra-based businessman, Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan and a security man at the Jubilee House, Mr Seth Mensah who used the name of First Lady, First Lady Mrs. Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo, and the twin brother, Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan to allegedly defraud business woman, Madam Abena Ahenkan of GH¢270,000 have landed themselves in serious trouble.
The two men were in trouble because the business woman was reported to have decided
to storm the Flagstaff/Jubilee House, the palace, which serves as a residence and office for the sitting President of Ghana to official lodge complain of how Mr. Kodjo Panyi Duncan and Mr Seth Mensah used the name of Ghana’s First Lady, to defraud her.
She revealed a shocking case of fraud involving Mr. Kodjo Panyi Duncan, who claims to have worked at the Flagstaff House in the office of First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Naa Okaikor Akufo-Addo who defrauded her [Madam Abena Ahenkan, of GH¢270,000 under false pretenses to facilitate the clearance of goods for her at Tema Port.
What is very annoying, according to Madam Abena Ahenkan was that, after Mr. Kodjo Panyi Duncan and Mr Seth Mensah succeeded in defrauding her, Mr. Kodjo Kakra Duncan who is a junior twin brother of a staff in-charge of security sliding doors at the Jubilee House quickly came in to plead with her [Madam Abena Ahenkan] to refund GH¢270,000.
She indicated that Mr. Kodjo Panyi Duncan and Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan are identical twins of the late Lt. Col (Rtd) Dr, K.K Duncan, who was a very prominent and well respected personality in Ghana.
Mincing no words, Madam Abena Ahenkan accused Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan for being the brain behind the fraudulent activities of Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan.
She asserted that it was cleared that Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan was aware that his senior twin brother, Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan has been been using his name or face as an identical twin to dupe unsuspecting Ghanaians, claiming that he is working at Flagstaff or Jubilee House.
She revealed that because the two were identical twins, Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan took advantage of that to be using the face of Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan to dupe many Ghanaians including her, Madam Abena Ahenkan.
Aside defrauding her, she noted that credible information available to them indicates that the two conspirators, Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan and Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan were reported to have been sentenced in $320000 bank fraud scheme in the United States of America (USA).
Providing documentary evidence to support her statement, Madam Abena Ahenkan stresed that the fraudulent activities of the two conspirators had caused them to be deported from the United States of America.
This news item was officially reported by www.justice.com, United States Department of Justice (.gov) and that more details would soon been revealed on this particular case in our next publication.
Madam Abena Ahenkan indicated that their checks have revealed that whenever the victims got annoyed to take legal action against Mr Kojo Panyi Duncan, his junior twin brother, Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan would came quickly to beg and arrange to go into payment agreement terms with the victims, ostensibly to frustrate the matter.
According to the business woman, these are the same criminal tactics being used by Mr Kojo Kakra Duncan who quickly approached her [Madam Abena Ahenkan] and signed an agreement with her, promising to refund the GH¢270,000 in the installments in four month period.
The agreement dated on Friday September 6,2024reads in part;” was headlined “Agreement for payment of GH¢270, 000 by Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan on behalf of his senior twin brother Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan to Madam Abena Ahenkan.
“With reference to the agreement being entered by Madam Abena Ahenkan and Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan on Friday September 6,2024, for which Mattorney Duncan agreed to pay an amount of GH¢270, 000 for the period of four months in installments on behalf of his senior twin brother Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan, I Madam Rita Awuah hereby agreed to the terms and conditions within the agreement.
“This agreement comes to light after Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan failed to honour his promises to assist MadamAbena Ahenkan in clearing her goods in the 20 footer container at the Tema Port at a reduced cost, but Mr Duncan never cleared the goods.
“When Madam Abena Ahenkan tried to retrieve her money, Mr. Panyi Duncan failed to pay, the development which informed the current decision of his twin junior brother to intend to take responsibility to pay the money to Madam Abena Ahenkan for peace to prevail.
“Mr Duncan promised to pay amount USD 4,230.00 for a month, starting from the end of September 2024, which means that he supposed to pay the GH¢1,200,000 at the end January 2025.
He assures to pay the money through issuing of post date cheques in four installments. He assured that no cheque issued by him would been rejected or bounced,”part of the agreement in possession of this news outlet reads.
But she noted that when they presented the first cheque Mr Kojo Kakra Duncan has issued with his bank account of UBA, it was completely bounced by the bank.
Madam Abena Ahenkan pointed out that attempts made by her [Madam Abena Ahenkan through her power of attorney to inform Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan of the rejected cheques got him annoyed with her and her power attorney for which Mr Kojo Kakra Duncan has used unprovoke statements against them.
Some of the statements made by Mr Kodjo Kakra Duncan reads in part; “l told you I’ll get back to you. Do you want me to put a stop payment on every thing. When I spoke with you, I candidly told you that the payment that was made to me didn’t go through and that I’m sorting it out.
“If this is the behaviour or route you want to take , I’d gladly rescind my decision to pay and you can go ahead and do whatever you want to do.”
According to Madam Abena Ahenkan, Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan through Mr Seth Mensah, promised to assist her in clearing her goods in the 20 footer container at the Tema Port at a reduced cost, but instead used the First Lady’s name to convince her and never cleared the goods.
When Madam Abena Ahenkan tried to retrieve her money, Mr. Panyi Duncan stopped answering her calls, her decision to exposed their lied.
After paying the full amount herself to clear the goods, Madam Abena Ahenkan discovered that Mr. Duncan had never passed the GH¢270,000 to the supposed clearing agent, Mr Ato Williams.
Mr. Duncan then issued two fraudulent cheques to pay back Madam Awuah, but they bounced.
However. when contacted Mr. Duncan claimed to have shared the money among seven workers at the Flagstaff House, claiming they had helped him facilitate the clearance of the goods.
Mr. Duncan claimed that GH¢110,000 was paid to a contact to reduce the duty value of GH¢1,200,000 to GH¢400,000, and GH¢40,000 was paid to various officers, leaving a balance of GH¢120,000 for him to pay back to Madam Awuah.
But in a quick rebuttal, Madam Abena Ahenkan stated categorically she didn’t know all these people he claimed to have been sorted out to help facilitate the clearance of the goods at Tema Port, stressing that “the only person Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan’s told me to help clear the goods for her is Ato Williams.”
The Genesis of the matter
Madam Abena Ahenkan recounted that the issue began when her clearing agent, Grace Trancy Homadzi, attempted to clear goods in a container she was importing from Thailand, only for the goods to be returned.
She was initially charged GH¢570,000 by the port regulatory authority including General Revenue Authority Division of Customs but pleaded for a reduction, as she could not afford the full amount.
During this crisis, Mr. Seth Mensah who is a her friend and business partner introduced Madam Abena Ahenkan to Mr. Kodjo Panyi Duncan, who claimed to know someone who cleared goods for the First Lady at Tema Port.
She said that Mr. Duncan assured her that the clearing agent would reduce the duty cost by adding her goods to the First Lady’s shipment.
Madam Abena Ahenkan, through her clearing agent, Grace Trancy Homadzi, handed over GH¢270,000 to Mr. Duncan, who claimed it was for the agent to clear her goods in the 20 footer container at Tema Port.
Additionally, she transferred GH¢20,000 via Mobile Money to Mr. Duncan as a gesture of gratitude for facilitating the transaction.
However, the goods were never cleared, and when Madam Abena Ahenkan tried to retrieve her GH¢270,000 from Mr. Duncan, he stopped answering her calls.
After paying the full amount of the money herself to clear the goods, she discovered that Mr Duncan had never passed the GH¢270,000 to the supposed clearing agent, Ato Williams.
“So the reason why l gave the money to Duncan was that he claimed that there a man called Atto Williams who can help me to clear the goods,” she added.
When she confronted Mr. Duncan, he issued a dud cheque for GH¢270,000, which was rejected by CAL Bank’s East Legon branch.
Madam Abena Ahenkan further detailed how Mr. Duncan took her junior sister, Miss Akua Afriyie, to the East Legon branch of CAL BANK more than three times to withdraw the money from the cheque to pay back GH¢270,000.00 he owed her, but he couldn’t withdraw the money.
Madam Abena Ahenkan pointed accusing fingers at Seth Mensah for convincing her to trust Mr. Duncan, who defrauded her, knowingly that Duncan didn’t have what it takes to help facilitate the clearance of the goods.
It was discovered that after Duncan has allegedly succeeded in defrauding Madam Abena Ahenkan to the tune of GH¢270,000.00 , he gave an amount of GH¢ 5,000.00 to Seth Mensah and GH2,000.00 to one of the brothers of Seth Mensah for helping him to dupe the woman.
“I have now realised that these are the plan works of Duncan and Seth Mensah to defraud me.so I am blaming Seth Mensah now because I suspect that he knows I have money and that I can afford to pay such an amount to Duncan, that’s why he went to deliberately bring Duncan to defraud me of such a huge amount, knowing that Duncan cannot help me anyway to clear my goods at the Tema Port,” she reaffirmed.
Our investigations have revealed that Mr Seth Mensah and Chief Inspector Gyasi on behalf of Madam Awuah have collected an amount of GH¢20,000.00 from Duncan at the Fiesta Royal Hotel in Accra and interestingly instead of them giving out the said money to MadamAbena Ahenkan as a part payment of Duncan to pay his debt, the two shared the money.
However, Chief Inspector Gyasi has confirmed that Mr Seth Mensah gave him GH¢6,000.00 out of GH¢ 20,000.00 received from Duncan to be paid to Madam Awuah.
In this regard, Madam Awuah called on the First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo, to be cautious of Duncan and Seth Mensah fraudulent activities, as they had used her name to scam her.
In an interview with this news outlet, Mr Seth Mensah admitted of introducing of Mr Duncan to Madam Abena Ahenkan, saying that Duncan promised to help her to clear her goods at Tema Port and that after GH¢270,000.00 was given to Mr Duncan, he refused to clear the container as promised and also defaulted in paying the money.
However, when contacted by this news outlet, Mr. Duncan denied using the First Lady’s name to defraud Madam Ahenka. He further denied working at the First Lady’s office.
He also refuted allegations of being arrested by a police officer from the Criminal Investigative Department (CID) at the Cantonment Police Station and dragged to his house in Achimota.
He stressed that he was simply invited by the police at the request of Seth Mensah over allegations of delaying payment of the money to Madam Abena Ahenkan.
Although he admitted collecting GH¢270,000.00 from Madam Ahenka facilitate the clearance of her goods at a reduced cost at the Tema port, Mr. Duncan noted that he used the said money to facilitate the clearance processes for the business woman at the reduced cost.
Mr Duncan provided documentary evidence
to support his claim that he used part of GH¢
270,000 given to him by Madam Awuah to support the clearance of the goods by the business woman.
According to Mr Duncan, the money he would repay to the business woman is GH¢120,000 and not GH¢ 270,000.00 as she was demanding from him.
The claim Madam Abena Ahenkan has disputed, stating that it is entirely untrue, stressing that she needs her GH¢270,000.00 to be refunded by Dr Duncan.
She emphasized that it is not true that Mr.
Duncan helped facilitate the clearance of her goods, saying that some influential individuals had helped to ensure that the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) cleared her goods at the reduced cost.
“Please my friend journalist l wish to state that Duncan himself knows for sure that he is not the very person who has helped me to clear the goods,” she insisted.
But Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan indicated that since Madam Awuah has not satisfied of what he has done for her to clear the goods, he agreed to refund the GH¢120,000.00 to her including the UDA Apartment money that he is owing the business woman.
According to him, so far he has managed to pay a total of GH¢50,000.00 through Seth Mensah to Madam Awuah and promised to pay the arrears in the installments.
Mr Duncan gave breakdown of the GH¢270,000 received from Madam’s Awuah agent, Grace Tracy Homadzi to help facilitate the clearance of goods for which Mr Duncan rejected his claim.
He disclosed that One hundred and ten thousand cedis (GH¢110,000) was paid to our contact to assist in reducing the duty value of GH¢1, 200,000.00 to GH¢ 400,000.
Additionally, Mr Duncan indicated that the others payments amounting GH¢40,000 were made to various officers and that balance of GH¢120,000 is what is left for him to be paid Madam Awuah.
Additionally, he indicated that the others payments amounting GH¢40,000 were made to various officers and that balance of GH¢120,000 is what is left for him to be paid Madam Awuah.
But Madam Abena Ahenkan in a quick rebuttal disputed his claim.
“If Kodjo Panyi Duncan is claiming that he used or spent GH¢270,000 to clear the goods in the 20 footer container at Tema Port why is it that he issued two cheques with faces value at GH¢ 270,000 to intend to pay back to me.
Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan must shut up l would make sure that he vomits the GH¢270,000 Duncan was not the very person whho facilitate the clearance of goods in Tema Port.
“Mr Duncan thinks he is smart. l noticed that, after l have paid myself to clear the container, Panyi Duncan knowing very well the job has been done, Mr Kodjo Panyi Duncan nicodemusly moved to Tema Port to pay GH500 to one Eric at the office of Trancy Homadzi to give the picture of the container which was cleared by Trancy Homadzi,’ Madam Abena Ahenkan revealed.
