The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Criminal Investigations Department-CID have detained two men in connection with operating fake police social media accounts that they have been using to post disparaging content.
Charles Twine, the CID spokesperson identified the two suspects as Mugerwa Nicholas resident of Kitebi in Rubaga division and Ochan Allan from Nabweru in Nansana municipality who are currently being interrogated at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) headquarters.
The two suspects who were arrested on Thursday evening opened twitter and facebook accounts in police names which they have been using to post disparaging content and conning some unsuspecting people. One of the ridiculous statements that was posted was that CPS police station building in Kampala was on sale.
“CID has built a formidable electronic countermeasure and anti-cyber-crimes team whose output will inevitably make the perpetrators endangered,” said Twine. “We managed to trace and arrested them and we still vigorously pursuing others. These acts and posts they have been posting are criminal in nature.”
Other statements they posted were against senior police officers including AIGP Asan Kasingye where they posted attributing to the police spokesperson Fred Enanga that Kasingye’s carelessness was the cause of contracting the coronavirus.
Recently on the same accounts in name of Uganda Police, after the Makerere University main building was on fire, there was a post that attributed to Fred Enanga and his deputy Polly Namaye that the public should disregard the fire in Makerere saying that it was caused by the collapsing of the building.
Twine has called on the general public and all victims of some of these fake accounts to come out at police CID headquarters and report.
On the issue of conning, police say that investigations show that these are the same people who target accounts of celebrities to use their names to extort money. According to Twine, a number of celebrities have been reporting these same cases.
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