Ghana jails 2 Nigerians for trafficking victims into forced cybercrime

A Ghanaian court has sentenced two Nigerian nationals to 20 years in prison each for trafficking fellow Nigerians into the country and forcing them to carry out internet fraud. This case highlights how trafficking networks in West Africa are increasingly built around cybercrime labour rather than traditional exploitation.

Kingsley Ndifon, 29, and Emmanuel Akong, 25, were convicted of human trafficking and causing harm by Circuit Court ‘B’ in Tema, presided over by Naomi Adusei Amamiampong Kucour, following a full trial.

Each was sentenced to 20 years for human trafficking and 10 years for causing harm, with the sentences to run concurrently.

How the cybercrime trafficking scheme worked

According to a statement from the Ghana Police Service, the men lured Nigerians to Ghana with promises of legitimate employment, then confiscated their phones and identity documents on arrival and compelled them to defraud victims online using laptops the traffickers provided.

The arrangement mirrors a pattern increasingly documented across West and Southeast Asia’s fraud economies, where technology hardware, not just coercion, is central to how trafficking operations function.

The suspects were arrested on 20 August 2023 at Sebrepor, a suburb of Tema, after police received a distress call reporting people held against their will. Officers rescued 11 Nigerian nationals from the property and recovered 16 laptops and an iPad, machines investigators say were the operational core of the fraud ring.

Victims told police they were fed once daily and beaten with laptop cables and machetes when they failed to meet the syndicate’s demands, leaving several with cutlass wounds. Rescued victims were found malnourished and in poor health.

Also read: Nigeria ranks 12th in FBI’s foreign cybercrime complaints with 1,219 reports in 2025

The case adds to a growing list of prosecutions tying human trafficking directly to digital fraud infrastructure, a trend Nigerian and Ghanaian authorities have flagged as harder to police than conventional trafficking because it straddles labour exploitation, cross-border migration and cybercrime law simultaneously. The Tema Regional Police Command said it remains committed to tackling trafficking and cyber-related crimes, and urged the public to report suspected cases promptly.