E-Voucher Thief Tracked Down

By Ibrahim Joenal Sesay

An electronic mobile Top up voucher thief identified as  Ishmail Sannoh has been caught in the very act. 

Ismail’s luck ran out yesterday when he tried to steal electronic vouchers from one Chernor Ibrahim Bah’s Tele Centre at his 64 Mountain Cut stall.

Ishmail of 40 Water Street Congo Cross is alleged to have previously stolen units up to the tune of 20 thousand from Chernor’s Tele Center. Explaining how Ishmail was tracked down, Chernor said some days back Ishmail went to his tele center to buy 50 units Electronic Voucher. While he was entering his personal code, Chernoh continued,  Ishmail who was behind him stealthily spied his code. “After sending the voucher, Ishmail later requested to make a one minute call using my phone not knowing that he has transferred 20 thousand units to his phone,” he explained.

He said at first he thought that Africell had robbed him. “I quickly reported the matter to the Police station and later I reported to Africell Customer Care”, he said. He noted that he was pleased with Africell  for the way they  handled the issue during their investigation.

Yesterday Ishmail ran out of luck when he returned to repeat the same act but this time with a Comium voucher. Chernor said he had set his phone with a special ring tone when sending vouchers to his customers. “As soon as the special tone rang, I immediately realized that Ishmail has stolen three thousand units,” he said.

Ishmail was brought to the Africell Custiomer Care officer who had been looking for him for other related credit crime.

Head of Africell Customer Care Julia Gilbert said on the 22nd of February 2011 according to records, credit were taken from Chernor Bah’s phone and transferred to 088460234 owned by Ishmail Sannoh. Mrs. Gilbert said they discovered that Ishmail had sent the credit to 13 subscribers for  a lesser cost (from Le38,000, to Le35,000).

When they discovered that Ishmail had sold the credits, they decided to block all the  13 numbers  so that they could track down the person they bought the credits from. Most of those whose numbers were blocked  reported to Africell Customer Care  to enquire why their numbers were blocked. “Through that we were able to retrace most of the credit stolen. Some repaid while others returned the credit to avoid further embarrassment” he said.

She assured dealers and subscribers that they are ready to serve their interest at all times and they will not allow others to bring them down.

Ishmail  Sannoh who claimed to be a Senior Secondary School ( S.S.S) 3 pupil said he only came into the business few days back because he wanted to continue his education. He denied having a huge amount of money at the bank due to such dubious deals.

Recently the dealers staged a protest on the increase in price of recharged cards the GSM companies in the country. Most of them described the increase as a way of bringing them back as they will not  make any profit in their business. For one to steal a huge stock of recharged cards from them is a stab on their backs.

Ishmail Sannoh is currently helping the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) in their investigations.