A Takoradi Circuit Court has remanded two students from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) into police custody for conspiring to commit the crime of ‘sextortion’.
The students, Jerome Enyam, aged 19, from Fijai, and Ebenezer Adam, aged 19, from Kojokrom, are both second-year students at KNUST, Kumasi.
Their actions violated the Criminal Offenses Act and the Cyber Security Act.
During prosecution, D/SGT Robert Mensah informed the Court, presided over by Her Ladyship Harriet Charway, that the accused were friends and classmates of the victim, Rhyndolf Owusu Hammond, aged 20, a former KNUST student and son of the complainant, Stephen Owusu Hammond.
The prosecutor explained that in early 2023, the complainant’s son recorded a video of an intimate encounter with his girlfriend and saved it on his laptop.
His close friend, Ekow Wilson, who is a key witness in this case, transferred the video onto his personal phone.
Subsequently, without Wilson’s knowledge and consent, one of the accused airdropped the video onto his phone and shared it with his accomplices.
In Takoradi, within the jurisdiction of this Court, the two accused, in possession of sexually explicit images of Rhyndolf Owusu Hammond and his girlfriend, harassed, threatened, and coerced him, eventually extorting GHC1,800.00 from him under the threat of releasing the video on social media.
On November 7, 2023, the prosecutor stated that the accused, using disguises, sent a text message to the victim from an anonymous Vodafone number, 0203224110. They claimed to possess an intimate video of the victim and his girlfriend, demanding GHC 2,500 in exchange for not releasing it.
The victim reported the matter to his father, who is now the complainant. His father subsequently reported the case to the Police Intelligence Directorate in Takoradi, leading to the arrest of the accused individuals.
Police retrieved a cell phone from each accused person, both containing the intimate video. After a thorough investigation, the accused were charged with the appropriate offences.