A High Court in Accra has sentenced two persons to 12 months imprisonment for the offence of conspiracy to steal, stealing and money laundering.
In addition, they are to pay a fine of 2,000 penalty units each or in default serve twenty-four months in prison in hard labour.
The convicts are Linda Abakah and Solomon Ofosu.
They are part of a criminal syndicate based in Assin Fosu that was arrested in April 2022, by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) in a joint collaboration with the Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB) and the Ghana Police Service.
According to a statement by EOCO, the syndicate was involved in mobile banking application fraud and sim swap fraud.
“They operated using sim swap and mobile banking application fraud schemes. Through their fraudulent activities, customers’ mobile numbers were swapped without their knowledge which allowed them to gain access to their mobile banking application to steal funds.
“They were able to illegally withdraw an amount of GHc257,472.22 from 11 customers,” the statement said.
The court presided over by Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe held that the two, having been in custody for a significant period of six months and the fact that the bulk of the proceeds of the crime has not been accrued to them; they were given a relatively lenient sentence.
Meanwhile, their two accomplices, Derick Obeng aka Chilling and Ezekiel Otoo who are still at large have also been charged with the same offences.