Two persons have been convicted by the Koforidua Magistrate Court of using the voter identification card of another person to withdraw money earned through fraudulent online transactions from a bank.
Seedorf Yirenkyi, 18, a resident of Ahenubrom Suhum and Noah Adum, 32, an air condition technician and a resident of Obeng Down Suhum, were said to have used the ID card of Yirenkyi’s 92-year-old grandmother to access the money from the bank.
A third suspect is currently on the run.
Yirenkyi and Adum were put before the court on charges of conspiracy to commit crime, stealing of voter ID and attempting to commit crime.
They both pleaded guilty to the charges amid shedding tears, pleading for justice to be tempered with mercy.
The court, presided over by Mr. Eric Asibey, convicted the two men on their own plea to a fine of 170 penalty units equivalent to GH¢2,040 on each offence.
The fines are to run concurrently, and in default, they are to serve six months imprisonment with hard labour.
According to Mr. Asibey, he was lenient with the two young men after considering that they were first-time offenders, admitted to have committed the offence, and the fact that Yirenkyi was a third-year university student.
The court heard that Adum went to a branch of the Fidelity Bank at Suhum and tried to connive with a staff of the bank to enable him withdraw money with a copy of a voter ID card bearing the name of a female which was sent to him through WhatsApp, a social media platform.
Adum was arrested and in his caution statement, he mentioned Yirenkyi as the person who sent the voter ID to him for the withdrawal of the money which had apparently been sent into the account from abroad.
Yirenkyi was subsequently arrested and a search on him led to the retrieval of the original copy of the voter ID bearing the female name, and when he was questioned, he told the police that he stole it from his grandmother and had been using it for the past six months.
The ID was retrieved and investigations revealed that it belonged to Yirenkyi’s grandmother.
The grandmother later told police that the ID had been missing for the past three years.
Yirenkyi then mentioned the third accused person, now at large, as the person who introduced him into the fraudulent online transactions and also requested for a female ID card to complete the process.
Yirenkyi told the police that he met his accomplice, Adum, who was then working with Sinapi Aba Bank, about six months ago and Adum agreed to withdraw the fraud money received from abroad with the grandmother’s ID.
Adum agreed to charge 10 per cent of every fraudulent online transaction made and that the attempt at the Fidelity Bank was the third time they were receiving an amount of GH¢1,980.
