You Can Be Jailed For Sharing ‘Russian Man Sex Video’ – Cybersecurity Warns Public

It is a criminal offence punishable by a jail term up to three years for any person to share virtually, publish online or to even keep a personal copy of the secretly recorded videos that captured a Russian man in sexually suggestive encounters with several Ghanaian women, Benjamin Madugu Avornyotse – Acting Director of Communications, International Cooperation And Strategic Partnerships for Ghana’s Cybersecurity Authority has warned.

He reminded the public that as far as the videos were recorded without consent, sharing them is not accepted and the fact that some of the contents are sexually explicit makes it a crime.

“This is for those who have the contents on their phones, stored in their memories and all of that. What I’m saying is that, even if you’re not the original person who recorded the video, it’s also an offense and it attract not less than one year imprisonment and not more than three years so for those who think that I’m not the one who recorded the video, and for that sake sharing it if those individuals are minded to make an official complete, the Cyber Security Authority and its other stakeholders will take you on”, Benjamin Madugu Avornyotse noted in an interview with the media.

He said the Authority is after the suspect; a Russian national accused of secretly filming sexual encounters with multiple women in Accra and allegedly sharing the content online for public consumption without their consent.

The issue has dominated conversations on both radio and social media, with many Ghanaians expressing shock and anger over the alleged conduct. Some have called for stronger enforcement of existing cybercrime and sexual offences laws, while others are demanding swift deportation if the suspect is found guilty.

In an interview, Mr. Benjamin Madugu Avornyotse explained: “So first of all, let me make it clear that it is unacceptable for a foreign national to come to our country, and for whatever reason, decide to record our ladies in the manner he did. That is not acceptable and is condemnable, and it is also an offense under the Cyber Security Authority Act, whether by this particular individual, by any citizen or anybody to record intimate images that both of you had agreed to record at the time you were getting intimate and later leak those images onto social media or online.

He continued, “I don’t think it’s an offense for both of you to engage in a certain act intimately, and then you decide to record such an act, but for you to decide that you are going to leak that act into the public domain without a consent of those individuals is completely unacceptable and the Cyber Security want to make it quite clear that we condemned that action by the said Russian national allegedly.

“Just a week before this situation, there was a similar recording of intimate videos of some individuals who are in the Volta region and our attention was brought to the videos. Those ones were really, really, not in the best place and the Authority with the help of our foreign nationals and global agencies worked to take the Telegram channel that was sharing those videos down.”