British lawyer before tribunal for fraud

A 77 year-old British lawyer, was on Thursday arraigned at a circuit tribunal in Accra for allegedly defrauding his Ghanaian friend of 3,000 US dollars under the pretext of helping him to retrieve 79 million dollars he had deposited with a security company in Ghana. Peter John Bray, who pleaded not guilty to defrauding by false pretences, was granted 20 million cedis bail with a surety, to re-appear before the tribunal on July 18.

Police Inspector Bennett Sarfo told the tribunal, chaired by Mr. Imoru Ziblim that in August, last year, the accused approached the complainant, Mr. Johnson Wisdom Eli Agbeli and convinced him that he had a huge sum of money, which he had deposited in a vault at the Ghana office of World Wide Organisation, a security company in Ghana.

According to the prosecutor, Bray then produced a certificate endorsed with his picture indicating that he owned two parcels containing farm produce from his farm in Zimbabwe, which he brought into Ghana and deposited them at a security company.

The prosecutor said the accused succeeded and collected 3,000 dollars from Mr Agbeli under the pretext of using it to pay for the clearance and collection of the consignments. Bray promised to refund the money in three months but failed to do so. Inspector Sarfo said when all efforts made by the complainant to retrieve his money proved futile, he reported the matter to the police.