Student aids stealing from company

Saturday, May 9, 2009
THE Accra circuit court has convicted a third-year student of a private university in Accra for aiding a convict to steal GH¢33,850 belonging to Yasarko Printing Press Limited, a printing firm in Accra.
The student, Christian Aban, and another, Joseph Oppong, were found guilty for aiding Hanson Lawrence Agyare-Sefah, who is currently serving a three-year prison term, to steal the money.
Aban and Oppong, both former drivers of the printing firm, were each ordered to pay a fine of GH¢1,200 or in default serve six months’ imprisonment.
They were also ordered to pay GH¢900 and GH¢2,000, respectively, being what they got from the stolen GH¢33,850.
Aban was reported to have paid the GH¢1,200 and GH¢900 but Oppong was said to be in custody due to his inability to pay the GH¢1,200 and GH¢2,000 ordered by the court.
Their accomplice, Agyare-Sefah, was convicted in September 2008 after he had pleaded guilty for stealing.
The convict pleaded guilty at a time when he had opened his defence and given his evidence-in-chief and was expected to answer questions under cross-examination from Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Eric Amoako.
The court found Agyare-Sefah guilty on 34 counts of conspiracy and stealing and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment on each count. His sentence is to run concurrently.
Agyare-Sefah had admitted in his caution statement that he had forged the signature of the company's chief executive to steal money from its accounts.
According to the convict, he sneaked into the office of the chief executive, Mr Yaw Sarkodie, to steal an unspecified number of leaflets from Standard Chartered Bank cheque books and further admitted using part of the stolen money to purchase two Nissan Urvan buses.
The facts of the case are that on August 17, 2006, the accountant of Yasarko Press Limited detected the theft of 29 cheque leaflets from the company’s cheque books which were normally kept at the managing director’s office.
According to the prosecution, the accountant informed the managing director, who then followed up to the Dansoman branch of the Standard Chartered Bank where 13 photocopies of the stolen cheques were obtained.
Following the arrest of the convicts, the police retrieved four additional photocopies of stolen cheques from the bank.
It was later found out that ¢338.5 million had been withdrawn from the company’s accounts.
Security cameras at the Dansoman branch of the Standard Chartered Bank revealed Oppong and Aban cashing money with the stolen cheques on June 23 and 28, 2006, respectively, at the instance of Agyare-Sefah.
Forensic examinations revealed that Agyare-Sefah had prepared and signed all the cheques.
Investigations also revealed that he had cashed majority of the cheques, with Oppong and Aban cashing two of them.
The two mini-buses which Agyare-Sefah allegedly used the stolen money to purchase have been impounded by the police.
An amount of GH¢3,100 was also retrieved from his bank accounts.
The court has since ordered the police to return the impounded items to Mr Sarkodie.