Student granted bail for impersonation

Kumasi, Nov. 23, GNA - A Kumasi circuit court on Wednesday granted a 20 million cedi bail to a 17-year-old student for allegedly impersonating his friend.

Simon Boateng Antwi is alleged to have printed an ID card bearing the name of Mathew Osei, his friend to collect money, which had been transferred to Osei by his pen friend in Australia. He pleaded not guilty and will reappear before the court presided over by Mr Ernest Yao Obimpeh, on December 15. DSP Regina Yobo-Addo, prosecuting said both the complainant and the accused were friends.

She said the accused was aware that the complainant, who is a supervisor of the Old Tafo branch of the Global Access Limited, a money transfer firm had a pen pal in Australia, who had been remitting him money.

The prosecutor said the accused contacted one Danso, currently on the run, a student of a Computer Training School at Tafo Mile four, to prepare an ID card with the name of the complainant to enable him to withdraw the money, which had been sent to Osei.

She said the accused had by then already stolen the e-mail address of the pen pal from the complainant and contacted him for the code number of the money.

DSP Yobo-Addo said luck, however, eluded the accused when he was in the process of collecting the money because the cashiers had detected that the owner had already cashed the money.

She said the accused was arrested by the officials of the bank and handed over to the police.