National service girl steals bank cash

A former national service personnel, Nancy Agbertey, who in the course of her posting to Stanbic Bank used ATM cards belonging to unsuspecting customers to steal money from their accounts, has been dragged before an Accra Circuit Court for the offence.

The accused, who used the ATM cards of the unsuspecting customers to withdraw money to the tune of over GHc12,000, was put before a court, presided over by M.E. Essandoh and charged with six counts forgery of documents and stealing.

She pleaded not guilty and has been granted bail in the sum of GHc10,000 with one surety who has to be a public servant earning not less than GHc1,500. The case has been adjourned to September 23, 2015.

The facts of the case as presented by Chief Inspector Francis Tassan are that the complainant is the Head of Financial Crime Control at Stanbic Bank, North Industrial Area branch, while Nancy is currently unemployed.

He said in the year 2014 the accused person worked with the bank where she was posted to do her national service. Her duties included helping customers of the bank to fill request forms for ATM cards.

Chief Inspector Tassan said the accused finished her service in June 2014 and filled ATM request cards for three customers of the bank, forged their signatures and linked them to the accounts of the unsuspecting customers who had not requested for ATM cards.

In addition, the police officer said between June 2014 and July 2014 Nancy withdrew GHc5,500 from the account of James Emmim, took GHc5,000 from Graham Okpoti and GHc2,100 from the account of Haruna Issaka.

Explaining further, he said SMS alerts were sent to the customers about withdrawals they made and the affected customers went and lodged complaints with the bank. During investigations by the bank, it was detected that a CCTV camera captured the accused making illegal withdrawals from the bank's ATM machines from these customers' accounts.

He said the matter was lodged with the Kaneshie Police and the accused person was arrested.

She admitted the offence in her caution statement and was consequently arraigned before court.