Police detectives who conducted a search at the suspect’s home recovered six phones, eight sim cards and a counter book in which Ssentamu is believed to have been recording phone contacts alongside other particulars of his potential victims.
Police in Kiira region on Friday arrested 28-year old Aaron
Ssentamu, a resident of Masese II cell in South division, in Jinja city, whom they suspect using social media sites and fake mobile money accounts to steal millions of shillings from unsuspecting Victims.
Detectives believe that Ssentamu, who normally refers to himself as Dr. Carol begins
his craft by sending friendly requests to his unsuspecting victims via Facebook.
After intensifying constant chats with them for about two weeks, he requests for their WhatsApp contacts and later engages them using
foreign based phone numbers, claiming that he is a renown medic in the United States.
On earning trust from his potential victims, Ssentamu
convinces them to send for him money ranging from 180,000 to 2,000,000 Shillings, with
promises of donating to them valuables like iphones, tabs, laptops and other
electronic gadgets.After failure to fulfill his pledge, he moves on, pronouncing himself dead, before dissolving his social media accounts.
Police detectives who conducted a search at the suspect’s home recovered six phones, eight sim cards and a counter book in which
Ssentamu is believed to have been recording phone contacts alongside other
particulars of his potential victims.
Rodgers Isabirye, who claims to have been fleeced of 2M
Shillings, says that Ssentamu informed him that his package had been
confiscated at the airport, since it contained 20,000$ and the extra money sent by him would facilitate the process of recovering his items from customs officials.
//cue in: “naliku Facebook…
Cue out…akakaile akandi,”. //
Another victim called Ronald Kasamba is a mobile money shop operator along Main Street in South Division of Jinja City.Kasumba says that Ssentamu was his daily
client, until he tricked him into applying certain codes on his phone. However after an hour,
all the money on his mobile money account disappeared.
“He claimed
that I was making direct transactions which would cause telecommunication operators
to block my transactional lines," a stunned Kasumba narrates. "He also gave me codes meant to safeguard my
sim cards from being blocked. However, after heeding his advice, all my float
amounting to 1.8 million Shillings was depleted in an hours’ time!”
The officer in charge of Walukuba police station, Bitamazire
Rukundo says that detectives have been deployed to hunt down Ssentamu’s
accomplices, who are still at large.
Rukundo says that the suspect and others still at large will
face two counts of obtaining money through false pretense and impersonation.
