ALUTA In Church Over Cash …Police Grab Pastor

Founder and leader of the Zoe Outreach Embassy at East Legon in Accra, Pastor Kelvin Kobiri is expected to appear before the Police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) today.

The invitation follows a demonstration of some aggrieved investors who went to the church yesterday to demand their locked up cash with the founder of the church.

There was drama at the church last week when some investors stormed the church, briefly disrupting church service to demand what they say is their locked up investments.

The case was not different yesterday when the aggrieved persons mostly men – some of them members of the Outreach – say they were convinced by the founder of the church to invest hundreds of Cedis with EL Real Estates and Tikowre Capital.

But The NEW Publisher’s source at the police CID said pastor Kobiri was whisked to safety as the angry investors besieged the church for their money.

According to the source, most of the investors from Tarkwa in the Western Region had stormed the church following a radio announcement that they should come for their monies, a promise that proved to be false.

It said “the story is that he is already under investigation for defrauding by false pretenses” at the CID headquarters at the Commercial Crime Unit. So he is already under investigation…”

The source said the Police Patrol Team was called following the disturbances at the church yesterday “so they went there and rescued the pastor to the headquarters, but police has taken statements from some of the church elders of the church.”

The police source stated that the Zoe Outreach Founder and leader was kept under protective custody because the investors had threatened to harm him.

The paper’s source disclosed that Pastor Kobiri is already on bail on a similar case and has been released on bail to report at the CID today.

Meanwhile, the customers say they neither sought professional advice nor checked the registration status of EL Real Estates and Tikowre Capital with the regulator, Securities and Exchange Commission because their in the trust the head pastor was sufficient.

They added that even when other microfinance institutions were going through crises, Pastor   Kobiri, owner of the companies and was able to honour his companies’ financial obligations to them by paying GH¢90,000 of the invested capital, GH¢150,000.