Banking Ghana - A banker of the Barclays bank and two others have been remanded into custody by an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly stealing monies from the private accounts of customers of the bank. The accused person, Nii Yartey Annan, who is the Operations Processor of the bank, allegedly acted together with Nii Motey Tetteh Fio, trader, and Michael Kwasi Frimpong, also a trader.
According to the prosecution, Nii Annan has secretly been sending the balance of the various private accounts of customers to Nii Motey Tetteh Fio, who in turn gives them to Michael Kwasi Frimpong, in a form of cheque to deposit in other banks.
The activity of the accused persons came to light when the third accused person (Kwasi Frompong) was tracked down by the Bureau of National Investigation (BNI) officers upon a tip-off.
He was arrested after he had deposited a cheque of GH¢42,986.04 at the Bank of Africa, Osu Branch.
Nii Yartey Annan was charged with abetment of crime, contrary to section 20 (1) of Act 29/60, Samuel Nii Motey Tetteh Fio was also charged with forgery of document, contrary to section 159 of Act 29/60, whilst Michael Kwasi Frimpong was charged with possessing forged document, contrary to section 166 of Act 29/60.
All accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges leveled against them before the court, presided over by Mrs. Ivy Heward Mills. They are expected to re-appear before the court today.
The facts of the case are that during the first week of January 2013, information got to the BNI that the accused persons and some others, currently at large, were in the practice of stealing monies from certain accounts of customers of the Barclays bank.
The prosecutor, DSP Aidan Dery told the court that the accused persons steal the monies and deposit them in their accounts at different banks adding that, based on this information, the BNI was alerted to track down the perpetrators.
He said on January 21, 2013, information again reached the BNI that the third accused person was heading towards the Bank of Africa, Osu branch, to pay in cheque.
DSP Dery emphasized that with this information, the third accused was tracked down by some officers of the BNI who got him arrested, after he had paid in the cheque of GH¢42,986.04.
"When confronted as to how he came by the cheque, he mentioned the second accused person as the one who gave him the cheque.
It is also evident that the first accused person has been sending balance on private accounts to the second accused person for their operations" the prosecutor stated.
By Helena Selby
Ghanaian Chronicle/04/02/2013