A bank official and a staff of a leading telecommunications network (name withheld) who reportedly connived with some four suspects who were recently arrested in connection with a SIM swap fraud, have been nabbed.
The Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), which made this known, said the suspects were said to have engaged the bank official (name withheld) to provide them with bank account details and phone numbers of their victims to assist them withdraw funds from their accounts, while the telco staff was contacted to clone the phone numbers of the victims for the operation.
This was revealed after four of the suspects namely Stephen Arthur, Nicholas Gyekye, Ahmed Ansah and Daniel Kodzi were paraded before an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Ellen Ofei-Ayeh on Wednesday, April 13, 2022.
The accused persons pleaded not guilty to nine counts of conspiracy to steal, attempt to steal, and participating in an organised criminal group.
Two of them – Stephen Arthur and Nicholas Gyekye – were each granted bail in the sum of GH¢6 million with three sureties, who should be gainfully employed, while the remaining two – Ahmed Ansah and Daniel Kodzi – were each granted bail in the sum of GH¢5 million with three sureties, who should also be gainfully employed.
The case has been adjourned to May 17, 2022 for hearing.
The four accused persons were arrested by officers of EOCO for attempting to illegally withdraw an amount of GH¢2,100,000 from the accounts of some customers of one of the indigenous banks.
They requested for phone numbers and bank account details of customers with huge balances.
The accused persons allegedly connived with the telco staff who managed to clone the phone numbers of some three customers with the intention of stealing GH¢850,000; GH¢680,000 and GH¢50,000 respectively belonging to the customers. The accused persons setup a mobile application with the cloned SIMs to withdraw the funds from the customers’ bank accounts. They were arrested as they sought to withdraw the afore-stated amounts.
A fifth suspect is assisting EOCO in its investigations as a witness.