Beige Bank former CEO to parade 61 witnesses

The former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Beige Bank Limited, Michael Nyinaku, who is accused of stealing, fraudulent breach of trust and money laundering, is set to call 61 witnesses to mount his defence.

Mr Nyinaku, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of 43 counts of stealing, fraudulent breach of trust and money laundering is currently on a GH¢200 million bail with three sureties, two of which have justified with landed property.

Mr Nyinaku has been ordered by the Economic and Financial Court Two Division of the High Court to open his defence after the prosecution closed its case after calling five witnesses.

In court on Monday, March 4, his lawyers, led by Thaddeus Sory, told the court, presided over by a Justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe, that they had filed a list of the 61 witnesses they intended to call.

The Court has since directed them to file the first of the 15 out of the 61 in order of which they would be testifying.

The case has been adjourned to March 13, 2024.

Facts of case

Per the brief facts of the case narrated by Deputy Attorney General, Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, Mr Nyinaku was the former Chief Executive Officer of Beige Bank and that on August 1, 2018, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) revoked the banking licence of Beige Bank and placed it on receivership.

He said a review of the financial and other records of the bank conducted by the receiver and his team showed several suspicious and unusual transactions, which were subsequently reported to the law enforcement agencies for investigations.

The AG said investigations conducted revealed that between 2015 and 2018, the accused person as CEO of the bank, had allegedly used various means to transfer huge sums of monies to companies related to him and for his personal benefits.

He alleged that the funds transferred were depositors’ funds lodged with the Beige Bank and that between 2017 and 2018, Nyinaku had caused the transfer of GH¢10,071.00 fixed deposit account held with Beige Bank in which various customers placed a total of GH¢448,636,210.21 to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited, (BCAM), without the knowledge and consent of the customers.

The AG said BCAM was a limited liability company wholly owned by the Beige Group Limited (Beige Group), an entity which in turn was wholly owned by the accused person, adding that the accused person between 2017 and 2018 caused the transfer of 35 fixed deposit investments of 23 customers of Beige Bank valued at GH¢141,042,348.92 to the Beige Group, a company wholly owned by the accused person and its majority shareholders of Beige Bank.

Investigations

The prosecution said further investigations revealed that in March 2018, the accused person had caused a “fictitious” second account to be opened in the name of First African Savings and Loans (FASL), an existing account holder with Beige Bank, without the knowledge of the board and management of FASL.

The AG said the accused person then caused the transfer of the sum of GH¢320 million from the accounts of various Beige Bank customers into the bank accounts of BCAM held with Beige Bank.

The GH¢320 million was subsequently transferred from the BCAM account held with the Beige Bank into the “fictitious” FASL account that had been opened in Beige Bank’s books on the instructions of the accused person allegedly, said the prosecution.

It said between March 2018 and August 2018, GH¢21,123,270.96 out of the GH¢320 million was transferred from the “fictitious” FASL bank account to some two individuals and ten companies, nine of which were related to Nyinaku, on his instructions.