The fifth accused person (A15) on the charge sheet of a case involving a former Absa Bank staff has finally been arrested and put before the Accra Circuit Court.
Ernest Aryee, who was alleged to have been on the run since June this year, was brought before the court on Monday, August 28, 2023.
His plea, conspiracy to commit a crime and stealing, was not taken because the other accused persons were not present.
He has, however, been granted bail and asked to produce four sureties, two should be salaried workers earning not less than GH¢1,500.00 a month.
This brings the number of people being tried to 13, leaving four more – Clinton Asamoah, Kwame Owusu Buadu(A8), Daniel Osei (A12), Boadu Nana Yaw Adjei (A14) and Isaac De-Here (A16) to be arrested by the police.
The police had already arrested Emmanuel Sakyi Afriyie (A1), Cecil NyamesemAgyarkwa (A2), Michael Tweneboah Oppong (A3), Richard Akinis (A4), Fouad Mohammed (A5) and Celeb Bondah (A6).
The rest,Nicholas Nii Sai (A9), Nana Kwesi Gyimah (A10), Benjamin Adoari(A11), Joseph D. Anim (A14) and Othniel Amankwah Dankwah (A10) turned themselves in for the trial.
Ernest Aryee also becomes the 12th person to be granted bail by the court, presided over by Mrs. Ellen Ofei-Ayeh.
Emmanuel Sakyi Afriyie has remained on remand since June 6 and he is charged of conspiracy and stealing GH¢1.2 million funds of customers of Absa Bank customers.These customers include late high court justice and Inspector General of Police.
Background
Emmanuel Sakyi Afriyie is a resident of Labone and until May, this year, was a contracted Processing Officer at the bank.
A1 was employed by Absa Bank as a contract staff in the month of February 2022, and was posted to the Osu branch as a Processing Officer, whose job description was to assist customers in loan processing, T-bill processing, debit card processing, dormant account activation, and customer account maintenance among others.
Emmanuel worked on several accounts, including that of Ekua Ewuduwa Dadzie’s bonus and savings accounts.
However, somewhere in February 2023, Al registered for an online coding course, which the renewable annual subscription fee was US$174.30 equivalent to GH¢2,287.69.
Unfortunately, instead of A1 to pay for the course out of his own pocket, he rather made the payment on Rev Cynthia Patricia Asamoah’s Visa Card on February 6, 2023.
As a result, the complainant and the fraud team of the bank were gathering evidence on the matter to engage Al, but the latter made a swift move to tender in his resignation letter, effective May 31, 2023.
The sudden resignation and the alleged illegal transaction on the customer’s Visa Card by A1 made the bank officials more suspicious to investigate him in other areas.
The complainant, together with the fraud team, made up of the bank’s IT experts, detected that on April 20, 2023 Al by his own machination accessed one of his colleague’s User ID and password to change the contact number on another customer, Ekua Ewuduwa Dadzie’s accounts.
On April 21, 2023 Al personally set up an internet and mobile banking access on Ekua Ewuduwa Dadzie’s accounts, using his own User ID and password, after which he had access and started operating on the accounts without the victim customer receiving SMS alert.
Therefore, from April 21 to May 12, 2023, Al with full access to the Ekua Ewuduwa’s account, fraudulently transferred a total of GH¢945,133.00 including charges from the accounts to a number of people.
First and foremost, he transferred GH¢90,000.00 to Cecil’s girlfriend, Rhoda Abena Gransimaa Panyin Quansah’s Cal Bank and Fidelity Bank accounts; GH¢180,000.00 to Richard’s Cal Bank account; GH¢30,000.00 to Michael’s Cal Bank account and GH¢30,000.00 to Fouad’s GT Bank account.
Caleb also received GH¢30,000.00 in his Cal Bank account, Kwame and Nicholas received GH¢30,000.00 and GH¢60,000.00 respectively in their Access Bank and Fidelity Bank accounts, and Nana Kwesi got GH¢90,000.00 in his Cal Bank account.
Benjamin had GH¢60,000.00 in his Ecobank account, Daniel received GH¢30,000.00 in his Fidelity account, Boadu, GH¢30,000.00 in his GT Bank account, and Joseph, GH¢60,000.00 in his FNB account.
All of the transfers were done in tranches of GH¢30,000.00 on different dates within the said period.
On May 9, 2023, from 7:21am to 7:32am, he used another colleague and that of the branch Manageress, Felicia Mackenzie’s Users IDs to change and authorise the contact numbers of eleven customers’ accounts, including the account of late Justice Anthony Kofi Abada, former IGP, late Mr. Ernest Ako, Williams Joe Frimpong, Rev Theodora Baaba Hackman, Esther Marian Hackman and replaced them with only one contact number, 0531668674.
Al used eleven minutes to complete these process, after which he used his own User ID to set up online and mobile banking for these accounts on May 10, 2023.
On May 11, 2023 Al transferred GH¢50,000.00 from Esther Marian Hackman’s account to Absa account of Ernest Aryee and did the same on the next day, by transferring GH¢50,000.00 each from late Ernest Ako, Williams Joe Frimpong and Rev Theodora Baaba Hackman’s accounts to some other Absa account holders.
The receivers of the transfers were Ernest, Othniel and Isaac. The court was told that Cecil, Richard, Michael and Fouad stated in their respective investigation cautioned statements that Clinton came to their shops to purchase Iphone 14 Pro Max and requested for their bank accounts details and forwarded the same to Al to effect those fraudulent transfers into their accounts.
On May 12, 2023 Al was arrested by the Police in respect of the Visa Card theft and was granted Police enquiry bail to be reporting.
On May 15, 2023, the complainant on behalf of the bank petitioned the Director General of CID in respect of GH¢1,207,017.00 theft detected in furtherance to the Visa Card case.
Interestingly, when Al was contacted to report himself to police, he refused to show up, meanwhile, effort to compel his surety to produce him also failed.
On June 4, 2023 A1 together with his girlfriend Ivy Okertchiri, who stood as surety for him, attempted to escape from the jurisdiction to Dubai, but he was arrested at the Kotoka International Airport by the Ghana Immigration Service and handed over to the police.
Investigation revealed that Al, together with his accomplices, within the period of April and May 2023, stole a total amount of GH¢1,209,304.69 from the aforementioned customers’ accounts.
He said the police are still investigating the matter to trace and arrest all the remaining accused persons as well as the proceeds of crime.
