<<Print>>

After five years of commuting between police custody and court, a trader and resident of Maamobi, a suburb of Accra, has finally been sent into Nsawam Prisons after being found guilty on two counts of stealing an amount of GH�13,774 by the Tema Circuit �A�, presided over by His Lordship Brew Plunge. The suspect, Phillip Kozeili, according to prosecution, stole the money from the accounts of Richard Kabutey Tawiah, the complainant and director of Saa Naa Tee Enterprise, a vehicle spare parts outlet in Ashaiman. Briefing the court, Chief Inspector Evelyn Susuawu said the suspect, who was known as Ibrahim Abochie, in March 2007 managed to steal one cheque leaf each of the complainant�s Ashaiman Unibank and Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB) cheque books and two Tema Ecobank cheque leaves. Phillip, prosecution continued, succeeded in withdrawing GH�6,984 and GH�6,790 from the complainant�s Ecobank and Unibank accounts respectively. Later when Richard Tawiah noticed that his cheque books had been tampered with and realising that large amounts of money had wrongfully been withdrawn from his accounts he notified his bankers, who subsequently networked with others to launch surveillance on the culprit. Luck eluded Phillip on July 9, 2007 when he attempted to withdraw GH�700 from an Accra branch of the National Investment Bank (NIB) with a cheque bearing the name Phillip Kozeili. The bank detected that the cheque was fictitious and caused the suspect�s arrest. Philip was handed over to the Ashaiman Police and in his caution statement he said that he realised that his NIB account had been credited with $15,000 on July 3, 2007, from one Hadi in the United States for a building project in East Legon, Accra. Chief Inspector Susuawu said the suspect indicated that he earlier in the day withdrew GH�8,000 from NIB and later issued a cheque of GH�4,000 to one Dan for the purchase of some building materials for his client�s building project at East Legon. The suspect said he did not know that the money in his NIB account was transferred from the complainant�s Ecobank and Unibank accounts.