Former GREDA boss bought sim box at $2,400 — Investigator

A former boss of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Dr Alex Tweneboah, admitted purchasing a SIM box worth $2,400 from the United Kingdom with his credit card, the investigator in the case in which Dr Tweneboah is alleged to have engaged in sim box fraud, has said.

According to the investigator, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mr Seth Sewornu, Dr Tweneboah also confessed to  receiving $1,300 from his partners in Hong Kong.
Testifying as the second prosecution witness in the case, Mr Sewornu told the Financial Division of the High Court in Accra yesterday that the accused person had told investigators that he engaged in the fraudulent activity because he was facing financial challenges.

The charge

Dr Tweneboah is facing three counts of providing electronic communication equipment without lawful authority, possessing illegal device and knowingly obstructing and interfering with the sending, transmission, delivery and reception of communication.
He has pleaded not guilty to all three counts and is currently on bail.

Evidence

Led by an Assistant State Attorney, Mr Joshua Sackey, to give his evidence-in-chief, the investigator told the court that a sim box, a 4G Surfline Internet modem, three laptops and cables had been retrieved from Dr Tweneboah’s residence at Manet Cottage in Accra on January 15, 2015.
He said a communication task force, in an operation to clamp down on activities of sim box fraudsters, on January 15, 2015 arrested Edmund Essilfie, Emmanuel Essilfie and Kwaku Appiah.
According to him, the three men denied ownership of the equipment found in Dr Tweneboah’s home and claimed it belonged to Dr Tweneboah.
The investigator told the court the accused person gave a statement and claimed he had paid for the sim box with his credit card in the United Kingdom.
The sim box, three laptops, the surfline modem and 72 sim cards retrieved from the accused person’s residence were tendered in evidence.
Prior to the tendering of the 72 sim cards, one of the lawyers for Dr Tweneboah, Mr Fiifi Abbam, had objected to the tendering of the cards.
His argument was premised on the fact that there was no evidence to prove that the cards were registered in Dr Tweneboah’s name.
But the court, presided over by Mrs Afia Serwaa Botwe, upheld the prosecution’s opposition to the objection and admitted the cards in evidence.