Police grab man for cloning banker’s drafts
A 38-year-old man is in the grip of the police for allegedly cloning banker’s drafts of Stanbic Bank and Ecobank Ghana Limited to defraud some business operators in Accra.
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The suspect, Ernest Steven Yeboah Boateng, who claimed to be a businessman, was arrested when he attempted to swindle the operator of an electronic shop with a cloned banker’s draft with a face value of more than GH¢1.3 million.
He was using the fake banker’s draft to purchase electronic gadgets, including 400 pieces of Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge phones, a Samsung Chest freezer, and a Samsung Side-by-Side Mirror fridge.
The rest of the items were five burner Midea gas stoves, a Samsung jumbo home theater, 78 sets of curved UHD Smart HI television sets and a Samsung RB34 fridge with a dispenser, all worth GH¢1,347,060.
Banker’s draft
A police source told the Daily Graphic that Boateng went to Prestige Capital Plus, an electronic gadget dealer, at Kokomlemle in Accra, and expressed interest in a number of electronic items.
The source said he was given a proforma invoice of GH¢1,347,060 as the cost of the items and he told the attendants that he would pay with a banker’s draft.
Boateng is said to have gone to the West Hill Mall branch of Stanbic Bank where he introduced himself as Alhaji Abubakari Muniru and paid for a banker’s draft of GH¢64 in the name of Prestige Capital Plus.
He is said to have cloned the banker’s draft and altered the amount to GH¢1, 347, 060.
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Arrest
He subsequently presented the cloned banker’s draft to Prestige Capital Plus on April 13, 2016 and demanded to take the goods.
However, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Prestige Capital Plus (name withheld) is said to have insisted that the goods could be released only after the banker’s draft had been cleared.
The source said Boateng left the shop without the goods only to return after 12 days with seven Ecobank banker’s drafts with a total face value of GH¢680,000, claiming his employer, whom he identified as Alhaji Abubakari Muniru, had decided to reduce the quantity of the goods earlier requested for.
Unknown to the suspect, the CEO of Prestige Capital Plus had confirmed the status of the earlier banker’s draft.
The source said the CEO called the police after it was confirmed that the Ecobank banker’s drafts were also fake, leading to Boateng’s arrest.
Writer’s email: emelia.ennin@graphic.com.gh