September 1, 2021
By: Francis F.M. Harding
The Sierra Leone Police has on the 30th September, 2021 updated the fourth Estate in their weekly press briefing at the Sierra Leone Police headquarters George Street Freetown about security developments. The leadership of the Sierra Leone Police has yesterday brief the press about the Koinadugu upcoming election for the 2nd September, 2021. The Assistant Inspector General of Police, Williams Fayia Sallu who doubles as the chairperson of the press briefing is the Director of Crime Services.
The Assistant Inspector General of police disclosed that, generally policing is ongoing on 24/7 as the SLP has embarked on executing professional Policing.
He said a warrant from the Court over the past couple of months after series of court cases which has been disputed on land matters.
He noted that the court has given order or title deeds to those who own these lands.
A.I.G. Sallu added that the court has given the owners to repossess their lands.
He said executing these matters involves a lot of planning and in the first place when they have such order they will conduct an assessment of the threat surrounding that property.
He continued to say that the personnel deployed have executed that plan and they formed a committee to assess the situation.
A.I.G Sallu further mentioned the duty of the presidential task force on Electricity Distribution Supply Authority operations.
“As all of us are aware of the fact of recently EDSA have been having problems through the vandalisation of their transformers, cutting coppers cables, and the illegal abstraction of electricity which have become a common practice of the day and that people have being playing with their meters to subvert electricity through the abstracting of light from EDSA” He revealed.
He said EDSA have been doing a lot and the President orders that the SLP put a tax force that is made up of the military and the SLP to hunt those found wanting of tampering with meters they have been investigated and prosecuted to court and they are ever day sending people to court and they have been paying fines.
A.I.G Sallu further stated that the SLP are deploying a huge contingent of police personnel for the Koinadugu District Chairman Elections slated for the 2nd October, 2021 as the election is very contentious.
“The SLP have a responsibility to provide security for the conduct of elections and it is the security which the SLP provides that will validate the outcome and the team will be headed by the Director of Operations since he has direct responsibility for that one and they have drawn personnel from different unit to be there since the district is a very big one” He stated.
A.I.G Sallu continued that the SLP have done a joint exercise over the weekend with their counterpart from Nigeria.
He said recently under the leadership of the of the Inspector General of Police Dr. Ambrose M. Sovula, the SLP have built a very cordial relationship with the Nigerian Police as they are doing exchange of technology, expertise whiles adding that they recently sent 10 police officers to Nigeria International Police School (NIPS) to build their capacity in leadership
He said they have dispatched another 10 officers to Nigeria with a view to build their own capacity.
He said they have worked with two Nigeria police officers one from INTERPOL and one from the Nigeria Criminal Investigations Department to follow-up on 419 scam which took place in November 2020 last year.
“It started in Nigeria a business man was duped to the tuned of one hundred and forty nine thousand dollars $ US 149,000, the first suspect Sundi Humfreed met the business man in Abuja and they told him that they have business contact in Sierra Leone and they have been dealing with this business for the past 20 years to certify gold from Ghana, Mali and Sierra Leone and they lured the business man to come to Sierra Leone and they met with three other people and three of them duped the business man one hundred and forty nine thousand dollars with the pretext that they will send fifteen gold bars to Dubai”, he explained.
He concluded that at the end the business man flew in the INTERPOL personnel and the SLP conducted a raid and they were able to arrest all of the suspects and one safe and two mental boxes which are suspected to contained fake gold dust as they were arrested in a hotel and they are under the police custody for investigation.
The Director of Crime Services Assistant Inspector General of police Fayia Sallu disclosed that they have 100 of Guineans who were found at a house of the Western Rural District Office at Waterloo after the community informed the police and they were brought to Jui at the multipurpose hall at Jui and for the past three days they have been taken statement from them.
He revealed that they are victims of fraudster after they were lied to about Qnet an online business entity which have headquarters in Hong Kong, Malaysia and they also operate in African countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon.
A.I.G. Sallu added that they have people who are called independent representatives who have the authority from Qnet headquarters to do business for them but the major scammers fled and the Guinean Embassy was intimated and they provided support to the SLP by given the SLP interpreters as all of them are speaking French and Susu.
He intimated that the SLP are preparing the final report about the 100 Guineans and they are working with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
He furthered that the on the 24th September, 2021 the SLP got an information on a criminal activity which is going on at the Queen Elizabeth Quay II as the workers are clearing containers using false Containers Tracking Numbers (CTN).
He added that this number is used to clear containers from the ship through Bolorie until the containers get outside of the Quay.
A.I.G. Sallu said last week together with the management of Queen Elizabeth Quay II they detected a couple of documents suspected to have been altered and they raised a red flag around that and they altered the movement of three containers out of the quay not knowing they have over fifteen containers. He concluded that the management has tracked falsified Containers Tracking Numbers.