Two accountants convicted over stealing and money laundering
Two accountants convicted over stealing and money laundering
Two accountants convicted over stealing and money laundering
Two accountants who stole GH¢970,000 belonging to
Perseus Mining Ghana Limited, a gold mining company at
Ayanfuri in the Central Region, have been sentenced to
a fine of GH¢36,000 by an Accra Circuit Court.
Ebenezer Sackey Aidoo and Michael Abekah, employees of the
mining company, in default, would serve 36 months imprisonment each.
This was after the court, presided over by Justice Ruby Aryeetey,
a High Court Judge, sitting with additional responsibility as
a Circuit Court Judge, found Aidoo and Abekah guilty on the charges
of conspiracy to commit crime, two counts of stealing,
and money laundering.
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Chief Inspector Seth Frimpong, prosecuting, said the complainant was
the Security Manager of Perseus Mining Ghana Limited and
the convicts were former employees of the company.
Aidoo was at the Treasury and Abekah worked as
an Account Payable Officer.
In June 2014, the Management of Perseus detected that two of the
company’s blank cheques had been stolen from the safe and used
to withdraw GH¢400,000 and GH¢570,000 respectively from the
company’s Barclays Bank Account at High Street, Accra.
Prosecution said the company realized that the two cheques were
written in the name of Asante Asuako Yeboah, a name that
the company had no financial liabilities to.
A report was made against Aidoo and Abekah to the Police and
after several months, prosecution said, Aidoo
was arrested at Dunkwa-On-Offin.
Chief Inspector Frimpong said investigations later revealed that the
account in the name of Asante Asuako Yeboah was a dummy account,
which was opened by the two accused persons to enable them to deposit
into it money they had conspired to write on the stolen blank cheques.
On February 5, 2014, the second cheque of GH¢570,400 was also
presented and paid into the dummy account at Obuasi Barclays Bank.
Prosecution said all the monies were cleared from
the account as soon as they hit it.
Further investigations showed that a whooping GH¢480,000 was
diverted in three tranches from the dummy account into another
Barclays account number 1226725, which later turned out to be a
personal account of Aidoo at North Kaneshie branch of the Bank, it said.
Prosecution said Aidoo admitted that he planned and carried out the
offence with Abekah after which he gave Abekah
GH¢470,000 as his share of the booty.
According to prosecution, Aidoo confessed that when the company
detected the offence, Abekah gave him back GH¢90,000 out of his
share to fly outside the country but he could not do so.
In the case of Abekah, prosecution said he admitted having received
only GHC230,000 from Aidoo out of which he refunded GH¢90,000 to Aidoo.
Investigations established that Abekah confirmed the cheques
before they were honored by the Bank.
