Unemployed gets six months imprisonment for forgery

An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced a 30-year-old man to six months imprisonment in hard labour for forging the cheque of a GCB Bank customer to withdraw GHS4,700.

Livingston Ankomah, 30, unemployed, also attempted to withdraw GHC3,000 but was arrested.

The court presided over by Mr Kwabena Obiri Yeboah again ordered Ankomah to pay a fine of GHS4,800 or in default, he would serve six more months in prison.

He pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to forge official documents, forgery, stealing and attempt to withdraw GHS3,000 and was sentenced after a full trial.

Meanwhile, Philip Mensah 31, unemployed, his accomplice, is on the run.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Emmanuel Nyamekye told the Court that Daniel Boakye, the complainant, was a Security Co-ordinator at the GCB Bank Ghana Limited, High Street, Accra and on February 25, 2022, a petition was received from the complainant that, a group of people had fraudulently withdrawn various sums of money from the accounts of some customers.

He said Police were investigating the matter when Ankomah went to the Kaneshie Branch of the GCB Bank on August 01, 2022, with a cheque No. 540442 with a face value of GHS4,700 and made a withdrawal of the said amount from account No.101115000345 belonging to Darlah Lawrence.

The prosecution said the same day he proceeded to the Circle branch of the Bank and presented a cheque No.540440 with the face value of GHS3000 to be withdrawn from the same account.

This raised suspicion, and he was arrested by the bank's staff and security and then given to the Police, ASP Nyamekye said.

He said enquiries at the Camlet Printing Press which printed the Bank's cheques indicated that the cheques were cloned ones and that JESINAT company's cheques of the bank were the ones which were manipulated, in the act.

ASP Nyamekye said Ankomah, now a convict in his investigation cautioned statement admitted the offence and said the cheque was given to him by one Philip Mensah (at large) and both went to the bank at Kaneshie to cash an amount of GHS4,700.

The court heard that they afterwards went to the Circle Branch together to present another cheque for GHS3000 but at the banking hall waiting to be attended to, the said Mensah went out and never returned.

Ankomah told the Police that the money he withdrew at the Kaneshie Bank had been handed over to Mensah, however, he could not assist Police to arrest the said Mensah, Prosecution said.