In Summary: Vocal journalist Sekou Sheriff shared on Facebook an image of a document he claims shows a money transfer record of US$298,00 to the son of President Joseph BoakaI. However, we verified the authenticity of the document and found that the information on it is inaccurate.
On April 3, talk show host of Voice of Liberia 104.1 Mhz Sekou Sheriff made a Facebook post with a photo he claimed was a transfer of money between the National Port Authority Managing Director to the son of President Joseph Boakai.
The information on the document purports that the amount of US$298,000 was transferred from the Bank of America to Barclay Bank in Ghana on October 12, 2023.
The Claim
When we say Sekou Dukuly paid for his job at NPA, you think it’s falsification, the crook in this pasted document wired 298,000 USD to Joseph Boakai, Jr. He was made MD at the disappointment of the UP’s Chairman who had to protest but it seems like what Jojo wants he gets from his dad since he’s expected to take care of the family after the old man has left the stage. This amount in question was sent after the election when actually nothing was needed in terms of electoral expenditure, it was the job hunt movement. Sadly, JOJO will be selling jobs in the full glare of the public; he and others aren’t far from being sanctioned. I am told the Americans are documenting these information and the first report on Liberia will be very damaging from human rights issues to corruption and other vices.
Rating Justification
To verify the authenticity of the document in the image shared by Sheriff, we first reviewed the photo and researched the Bank of America website which shows that a swift code from the Bank of America is provided for incoming wires.
This means that in a money transfer, a swift code is needed from the Bank of America for receiving transfers and not sending money.
But the image shared has a swift from the Bank of America which he claimed was from the sending bank. The image shared had only the bank name and its logo, but no address.
Also, the swift in the photo is not either of the swift codes used by customers of the Bank of America.
The Bank of America swift code for incoming transfers for US dollars is BOFAUS3N and for foreign currency the code is BOFAUS6S. However, the bank encourages senders, who are not sure of the currency, to use BOFAUS3N to make transfers.
We also reviewed the bank account number and noticed that the one on the document shared on Facebook is 14 digits instead of 12 digits. Bank of America account numbers are 12 digits long and not 14 as purported on the image shared.
Furthermore, the photo shows that the transaction date was October 12, 2023, and the receiving bank name is Barclay Bank Ghana.
However, our research shows that Barclays Bank Ghana changed its name on February 10, 2020, and it is now known as Absa Bank Ghana Limited.
There are also noticeable spelling mistakes in the document which one can notice easily like “dated posted” and the name of the receiving account is misspelled as “Joseph N. Boakia Jr.” instead of “Joesph N. Boakai Jr.”
Also, the address of the bank is misspelled. The actual location of the bank branch is “Opposite Coastal Estates Junction Spintex Road, Accra” and not “Spinex Road, Accra” as claimed in the photo.
Conclusion
Based on these facts we conclude that the photo posted by journalist Sekou Sheriff claiming that is an image of a money transfer from NPA Managing Director Sekou Dukuly to Joseph N. Boakai Jr is fake.
The photo has a series of grammar mistakes including other details relating to bank transfer information and basic important information about the Bank of America.