Self-styled pastor and wife charged over alleged romance fraud

A man who police say built relationships with women by posing as a pastor on Instagram has been charged, together with his wife, with defrauding seven complainants of tens of thousands of dollars and blackmailing some of them with intimate images, in a case an Accra court has adjourned to next month.

Nana Yaw Bonsu Kwarteng, 35, appeared before the Accra Circuit Court alongside Sally Akosua Amoasah, whom the police describe as his wife, on charges of conspiracy to commit crime and defrauding by false pretences.

Kwarteng faces a further charge of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, which the prosecution said would be tried separately at the High Court. Neither has yet entered a plea.

According to the police, Kwarteng ran online church services on Instagram, where he approached women and told them God had revealed they were his future wives, going as far as meeting their families and presenting promise rings to win their trust.

He then allegedly drew some of them into a tyre-importing business that did not exist, collecting money to ship and clear containers that never arrived before he went quiet.

Prosecutors allege that he obtained intimate images of some of the women and used them to extort money, and that he passed the material to Amoasah, who is accused of threatening the victims with it.

The offences, the police say, date back to 2021.

The prosecutor, Inspector Frank Morgan Dorvi, told the court that the seven complainants, described as including an ambassador and businesswomen, had lost sums that included $33,000, $4,000, GHS25,000 and GHS22,000, along with other foreign currencies.

Kwarteng "presented himself as a pastor, to establish relationships with women before inducing them to part with money," he said.

The court remanded Kwarteng in police custody to reappear on 6 August, while Amoasah was granted bail of GHS100,000 with two sureties and ordered to report to investigators every Monday and Friday.

The police said they were still receiving complaints and asked anyone with a similar experience to come forward.

The case joins a run of romance and online-fraud prosecutions that has pushed Ghanaian investigators to warn, again and again, about rising online romance scams and the red flags that mark them, even as the Cyber Security Authority reports a surge in blackmail and sextortion.

The intimate-images charge against Kwarteng rests on the same law that underpinned last year's case against the evangelist Nana Agradaa, which makes sharing such material without consent a crime.

None of the allegations has been tested in court, and both suspects keep the presumption of innocence until the case is heard. It returns to court on 6 August.