Criminal organisations based in West Africa are believed to have attempted to defraud Finnish financial institutions over the past few years using bad cheques. The same groups are believed to be behind a number of cases of credit card fraud.

   

If all of the attempts had succeeded, the gangs would have got hundreds of thousands of euros. However, only a few of the forged cheques were ever successfully cashed.

   

The Helsinki Criminal Police have investigated a number of cases of suspected fraud, two of which involve ordinary cheques, one using travellers' cheques, and one in which credit cards were used. They all seem to be linked with the same criminal organisation.

   

In one of the cheque fraud cases the preliminary investigation is completed, and the investigation is still in progress with the others. Several people have been remanded in custody.

International police organisations say that West African Criminal Networks (WACN) have been expanding their operations in recent years. In addition to cheque and credit card fraud, the WACN are believed to be behind the infamous Nigerian e-mail scam, in which e-mail is sent out offering massive commissions in return for help in getting large sums out of Nigeria or other countries.

   

The groups have also been implicated in other types of fraud, as well as drug trafficking, human smuggling, and trade in stolen cars.

Among the suspects detained in Finland are a number of men who were convicted of similar types of activities in the mid-1990s. Police first learned of the new series of cheque frauds in 2000, and the investigation made new headway in 2002 when a number of Finnish-born women began trying to cash similar cheques at Finnish banks.

   

The cheques were from well-known international banks, such as the French Credit Lyonnais. Originally they were written for fairly small sums of money, but later much larger amounts were written in.

   

The largest was for EUR 80,000.

The main figure in the cheque fraud case, Congolese Makiese Diasonama, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for numerous cases of forgery and fraud.

   

A warrant was issued for Diasonama's boss, who goes under the name of Myumia Eza, which officials suspect is not his real name. He was arrested last month when he arrived in Hanko by boat from Rostock.

   

"Eza" is not in Finland for the first time. He has a Congolese wife and a couple of children living in the Helsinki area, and another family in Northern Finland.

While looking for "Eza", Finnish police began receiving information about attempts at exchanging forged American Express travellers' cheques worth GBP 500 each at Forex currency exchange offices.

   

The most successful was a man by the name of Alessandro de Sando who managed to get nearly EUR 40,000 from Sampo Bank.

   

The travellers' cheque case began to unravel last month when a man bought a number of cheques worth GBP 20 each, and wanted to sign them with a pencil. The bank called the police.

   

The man was carrying a forged Belgian passport with the name Michael Idehen. He is now in custody.

   

On the previous day a Finnish man believed to have been working with "Idehen" had tried to cash GBP 11,000 worth of travellers' cheques, which had originally been bought in Kenya and reported stolen there. They were of the same series as the cheques used by "Alessandro de Sando".

   

When his passport was shown to be a forgery, the approximately 30-year-old "Idehen" applied for political asylum in Finland as a Nigerian under the name of Joe Ide.

   

Officials say that the same man had applied for asylum in Salo in the summer of 2003 identifying himself as Georg Uzona, a Nigerian businessman. He is known to have had other aliases in other countries.

"Idehen" and his partners are suspected in Norway of using forged travellers' cheques to get 1.5 million Norwegian krona, or about 170,000 euros.

   

In Norway he has a wife born in 1947, and in Finland he has a girlfriend who is pregnant.

   

A fourth case involving the same series of events concerns a number of cases of credit card frauds. Suspects include several of those implicated in the cheque fraud case.

   

The credit cards are stolen, or are forged by copying the information on the magnetic strips of the genuine article onto empty cards. Police say they have found large bags full of blank cards used in the frauds.

   

The cards are used to buy goods for such small amounts that the buyers do not need to prove their identity. The goods are then sold, and much of the loot is sent to Belgium.

   

The suspects have not been left empty-handed though: the men were found to have shoes worth hundreds of euros a pair.