Eight suspects have been arrested following the recent kidnapping of two Ghanaian women in Nigeria after they were lured through social media by a group of Nigerian kidnappers who posed as white men in search of romantic partners.

The victims, Anastasia Beidou and Evelyn Sewa Kunedu, were deceived into traveling separately to Nigeria, where they were abducted, tortured, and held for ransom.

At a press briefing held on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters in Accra, the Ghana Police Service confirmed that eight suspects had been arrested ? five in Ghana and three in Nigeria in connection with the kidnapping.

The Director-General of the CID, COP, Lydia Yaako Donkor, said the suspects used social media platforms to initiate romantic conversations with the victims while pretending to be foreign nationals seeking marriage.

The victims, unaware of the trap, accepted the marriage proposals. On April 22, 2025, both women traveled to Nigeria separately but arrived at the same location in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Upon arrival, they were seized by the gang and held captive.

The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 500,000 Ghana Cedis from each victim?s family. Videos sent to their relatives showed the victims bound and pleading for help, prompting immediate police investigations in Ghana.

A coordinated operation involving the Ghana Police Service, Nigeria Police Force, and the National Signals Bureau led to the arrest of five suspects in Ghana. These included Christian Emeka and Basil Okonkwo, both Nigerians; and Titus Imba Awuni, Alfred Amalbio, and Mama Mahaseni Matei, all Ghanaians.

Three more suspects Peter Okoye, Paulinus Chidokwe, and Chinonso Okafor, were arrested in Port Harcourt and Onitsha by Nigerian authorities. The victims were rescued unharmed and are currently undergoing trauma care.

Investigations revealed that the suspects used Ghanaian SIM cards fraudulently registered with stolen Ghana Card details to receive ransom payments. One suspect, Titus Imba Awuni, a mobile money vendor, confessed to acquiring SIM cards through a telecom company employee who provided login credentials to register the cards illegally.

The suspects used the SIM cards to receive a total of 13,200 Ghana Cedis in ransom, which was later transferred into a Nigerian bank account under the name Cecilia Williams.

The victims reported that while in captivity, they were stripped naked, beaten with shards of glass, wrapped in orange bedsheets, and threatened with death. The gang recorded the abuse to pressure their families for ransom.

DCOP Donkor warned the public, especially young women, to exercise caution in online interactions, noting that criminal syndicates are increasingly using social media to exploit and abduct unsuspecting individuals.

She added that efforts are ongoing to extradite the suspects to Ghana for prosecution and reaffirmed the commitment of the Ghana Police to combating cross-border crime through collaboration with regional and international partners. (Adapted from a report by Zagazola)

Update news