How Stanbic’s C1 ‘Star Banker’ duped 246 clients of GHC1.8m

MyNewsGh.com within the week exclusively broke news of the 8-year jail term handed down to Martha Amakye, a 34-year-old star banker of Stanbic convicted of stealing approximately 1.8m Ghana cedis of depositors’ funds.

Amakye was found guilty by the court presided over by Mrs Justice Afia Serwaa Asare- Botwe for exploiting 246 customers of the bank by collecting various sums of money from them between 2015 and 2016 under the pretext of investing it in fixed deposits.

In addition to her 8-year jail time, the court also directed the state agencies to take steps to retrieve the amounts that Amakye swindled from the customers, since she failed to refund it.

Ashaiman’s lady Millionaire

In January 2017, the then suspect Martha Amakye was a 33-year old worker of Stanbic Bank Ghana when she was declared wanted by the Police for allegedly defrauding customers of the bank of more than GH¢900,000. During trial, it was revealed the amount was GH¢1.8m, double what was earlier reported and she had used it to take care of her boyfriend’s needs, bought some cars and acquired properties in Ashaiman.

Martha Amakye was reportedly very philanthropic with her ill-gotten loot, helping the needy and paying school fees of her needy neighbours’ wards among others.

But trouble struck when her face was splashed all over the news for theft.

Tired and on the run, it was not until 5 months later in May 2017 that suspect Martha Amakye was arrested from her hideout in Ashaiman by the police upon a tip-off.

Contract Staff

Although Stanbic have sought to portray her as a contract staff, to downplay the significance of her crime to the reputation of the bank, MyNewsGh.com has discovered that she was awarded as Stanbic Bank’s star banker of many months in 2016 and early 2017 with her photo gigantically plastered at Stanbic’s Tema Community 1 branch because she was bringing in money.

Martha, indeed, was an outsourced staffer from Noswall Management Service, a recruitment agency, fled when Stanbic Bank’s financial crime control unit found out that she was involved in fraudulent transactions.

The reports from the Commercial Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department and the Financial Crime Control Unit of the bank revealed that most of the victims paid their funds meant for the investment to Amakye in the banking hall, while others gave the money to her outside the bank and they didnt care or know whether she was a contract staff or permanent Stanbic employee.

Pregnancy before jail

There was a little hold up before her sentencing as it was suspected that she could be pregnant. The court took a two-hour break after which her 8-year jail time was handed down. She was not pregnant. Some of those her philanthropic gestures touched were in court to sympathize with their ‘Millionaire’ who will only be seen after her 42nd birthday.