THREE BANK WORKERS JAILED FOR FRAUD (BACK PAGE, OCT 30, 2010)

THREE employees of the Suhum branch of the Mumuadu Rural Bank who stole a total of GH¢148,422 belonging to the bank have been sentenced to seven years' imprisonment each with hard labour by the Koforidua High Court.
The convicts, Michael Nti Gyakari, Paul Mensah and Frank Dankwa, were all cashiers at the bank where they embezzled GH¢46,170, GH¢39,334 and GH¢62,918 respectively.
As their modus operandi, they collected the passbooks of customers who went to the bank to deposit their money and wrote the deposited amounts in the passbooks but failed to enter them in the bank’s books and destroyed the deposit forms to avoid detection before pocketing the money.
The three, who are currently students at the University of Cape Coast, were charged with stealing but pleaded not guilty to the 254 counts.
According to the facts of the case as presented by a State Attorney, Mr Frederick Tetteh, on May 14, 2009, after close of work, while the Suhum branch manager of the Mumuadu Rural Bank, Mr James Osafo, was checking the transactions for the day, he detected from Paul Mensah’s cashiers book that there were transactions which were not supported by the vouchers and which indicated stealing.
Consequently, he said, the internal auditor at the bank’s head office at Osino was invited to assist with investigations.
Mr Tetteh said it came to light that within a period of one year, while the three persons were on duty at the bank, they received various sums of money from customers and entered such money in the respective bank passbooks of the customers.
However, the convicts failed to enter the same amount in the ledger books and also failed to feed the computer with the transactions and pocketed the deposited amounts.
The case was then reported to the police and after investigations, it emerged that Nti Gyakari stole GH¢46,170 while Paul Mensah and Frank Dankwah stole GH¢62,918 and GH¢39,334 respectively.
According to the State Attorney, in the course of investigations Nti Gyakari paid GH¢5,000 while GH¢1,900 and GH¢2,000 were paid to the bank by Paul Mensah and Frank Dankwah respectively before being arraigned.
Passing sentence, the court, presided over by Mr Justice G. S. Suurbaareh, said the incarceration of the three should serve as deterrent to other personnel working in the banking industry.