Three people would be arraigned before an Accra court today, for their suspected roles in the robbery of a colossal amount of ¢6billion (Gh¢600,000) from the Ghana Commercial Bank accounts of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
Confirming this to The Chronicle, the Director of Operations of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), ACP Charles Tokor said the three people, whose names were being withheld by the police were being processed for court today.
He noted that the three were under high security surveillance and were being interrogated by the police.
When asked whether the suspects were responding to police interrogation, he responded that "they are not assisting us in the interrogations but we will take them to court."
He cautioned that it was not prudent to disclose the identity of the suspects because it might jeopardize police investigations; however, information gathered by the paper has revealed that the suspects included some officers from TOR.
The Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Dr. Kofi Kodua Sarpong, had earlier told Joy Fm, an Accra based radio station that he had estimated that more corporate entities could fall victim to the activities of the fraudulent syndicate.
Dr. Sarpong said judging by the sophistication of the syndicate; TOR was not likely to be the sole victim of the suspected criminal gang.
He continued that luckily for TOR, police investigations had led to the discovery of an account of the suspects containing about ¢2 billion, leaving the refinery and the police with the hunt for the remaining ¢4 billion.
"I wouldn't say that we've lost six the account was attacked, six was withdrawn but in the accounts of the suspects there are some monies there which have already been blocked so maybe I can't tell the figure off hand, maybe close to two billion, so if we net off, then we should be looking at some four billion to search for," he added.
Dr. Sarpong was full of praise for officials of Stanbic Bank, whose vigilance he said, led to the arrest of the third suspect believed to be a member of the syndicate.
According to him, the suspect had attempted withdrawing money from one of several phony accounts operated by the gang.
"Nobody should see this kind of attack as only affecting Tema Oil, from the sophistication that I have learnt these people operate with, possibly other corporate entities are affected except that that has not come public, so I think we all need to work hard to smash the syndicate otherwise corporate entities and individuals are going to suffer," he warned. Dr. Sarpong agreed with John Akorful, Chief Accountant of TOR who had earlier suggested that the fraud could have been detected earlier and probably nipped in the bud if a facility operated by Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) had been effective, but he said the bank had been very reliable in previous times.
He was emphatic that heads will roll after investigations had established culpability against anyone in the refinery.
"The most important thing is that a cheque book disappeared from the cash office; that is why I think our staff are in there to assist the police, but I think it would be wrong to assume at this stage, that they forged those signatures. At least we've got one person he should be able to tell us how he came by the money in his account and the cheque he is using and who forged that. They should be able to help us. Obviously there should be a link from Tema Oil because the cheque book couldn't have walked from the cash office into the fraudster's hand, somebody obviously took it there," he indicated.
The Public Relations Manager of GCB, Nana Duncan told the Chronicle that the Bank currently preferred to keep silent on the issue pending its independent investigations.
"Due to the bank's customer relations we don't talk about this kind of issues when they arise, I think TOR has already stated their point but we are still investigating," he said.
