There a nearly a major theft case at Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited, which four persons attempted to withdraw twenty-one million Ghana cedis (GH¢21,000,000.00), from customers’ savings counts.

The four persons who nearly perpetuated the crime being are Stephen Arthur, Nicholas Gyekye, Ahmed Ansah and David Kodzi, and currently standing trial on seven charges.

The four had been slapped with GH¢21, million and stringent bail conditions after pleading not quilty to the charges.

The charges are conspiracy to crime namely, defrauding by false pretence, stealing, three accounts of attempting to steal, and two counts of participating in organised criminal group

The case is being prosecuted by the Economic and Organise Crime Office (EOCO) at the Circuit Court ‘7’ presided over by Ellen Ofei-Ayeh yesterday, April 13, 2022.

The criminal case as narrated to the court by the prosecuting officer, Leo Anthony Siamah (esq) are that on January 24, 2022, EOCO received intelligence from a staff of Fidelity Bank that some persons were allegedly asking him to aid them with bank details of some customers to perpetrate fraud.

Mr Siamah said bank’s staff was then instructed by the Fidelity Bank management to liaise with the guys to understand what they wanted and intend to do.

With this background to the court, the prosecutor went ahead to narrate how the alleged scheme started, stating Nicholas Gyekye was contacted by Arthur to assist him get a Fidelity Bank staff who can provide bank account details in order to withdraw funds from the account. 

As a result, he said on January 25, 2022, Dominic Asante was contacted by Gyekye on WhatsApp and also called him on phone.

According to the prosecutor, Gyekye told Dominic Asante to get him phone numbers and bank account details of customers with huge monies.

He added that in order for Arthur and Gyekye to achieve their agenda with the help of Dominic, the three met at the Accra mall on March 17, 2022, to discuss the modus operandi.

Mr Siamah told the court that Gyekye during the discussion allegedly informed the rest that he has contact persons within MTN who can assist to clone any phone number that Dominic Asante brings to him.

Gyekye is alleged to have claimed that he has a friend by name Destiny whose girlfriend works and has been cloning sims for another syndicates involved in this same fraud scheme.

With this assurance, Gyekye and Arthur agreed with Dominic that the latter would provide three phone numbers of customers with huge funds in their Bank account.    

Therefore, on March 28, 2022, Dominic gave the accused persons three phone numbers belonging to individuals such as Ransford Nana Addo, Ama Ofosu-Kuai Addo and Jessica Eshun Ababio to clone.

Arthur and Gyekye, therefore, engaged Ahmed Ansah who also gave the phone numbers to Daniel Kodzi to clone.

The court was told that the four allegedly had a single intent to steal from the Fidelity Bank customers the following amounts; GH¢850,000, GH¢680,000, and GH¢ 570,000 respectively. 

To finalize their plan, Gyekye sent Dominic Asante WhatsApp message on Thursday, March 31, 2022, that they have been able to clone the sim cards through the help of Ahmed Ansah and Daniel Kodzi. 

Arthur, Gyekye and Dominic Asante agreed on April 2022 to setup a mobile application with the clone aims to withdraw the customer bank account funds, and while attempting to give the plan oxygen at the Achimota mall, EOCO arrested them.

Mr Siamah urged the court to remand the accused persons into police custody two months, to enable EOCO to complete its investigations.

However, the court gave the prosecution one month to complete their investigation and granted Arthur and Ahmed Ansah bail in the sum of GH¢6 million with three gainfully employed sureties, one should justified with titled deeds while Gyekye and Kodzi were slapped with a GH₵5million, with three gainfully employed sureties, one should justified with titled deeds.