The suspects — Bright Addae Addison, a 31-year-old banker of the National Investment Bank (NIB); Fuseini Abdullah, a 32-year-old Managing Director of Gumah Oil and Gas Limited, and Dennis Koranteng, a 46-year-old businessman — are being held for alleged transfer of the amount into another location.
Another suspect, identified only as Samuel Painstil, 24, is at massive and is being hunted for.
The suspects have been said to have cloned a cheque book belonging to the ministry to withdraw the massive amount from the ministry’s account at NIB.
They are in the custody of the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) assisting in investigations.
The Executive Director of EOCO, Frank Adu Poku, a retired Commissioner of Police, who proven the arrest , said on May 5, 2020 the unit received a criticism from the Ministry of Energy that anyone had tried to withdraw GH¢3.5 million from the ministry’s account.
“But according to the ministry’s complaint, no cheque had been issued to any individual or employer for any work done,” he said.
The EOCO boss revealed that the stated cheque used to be an NIB financial institution cheque to be paid into Gumah Oil and Gas Limited account at Zenith Bank.
“With the full cooperation of the two banks, EOCO traced and retrieved the cheque from Zenith Bank for investigations,” he added.
Further investigations showed that the signature on the stated cheque did now not correspond with the authorized signature from the ministry.
“We again did signature verification from the police forensic specialists which result indicated that the signature was fake and that the cheque was cloned,” Mr. Adu-Poku pointed out.
It has come up also that suspect Painstil (now on the run) went to deposit the cheque into the account of Gumah Oil and Gas Limited at Zenith Bank.
Suspect Bright Addison, NIB worker in cost of the said account, was once to reveal and file to Dennis Koranteng when the cheque in the end goes through.
Later, a supply at EOCO said that when the suspects have been individually interrogated, Fuseini Abdulla said he received a call from any individual that the Ministry of Energy had issued a cheque for price of work carried out by means of Gumah Oil however due to the fact that they had additionally now not finished any work for the ministry, he requested that the cash be paid into his Gumah account.
Bright Addison additionally allegedly told the safety officials that he used to be called with the aid of Dennis Koranteng to monitor and inform him when the cheque in the end goes through.
Dennis Koranteng, on the different hand, mentioned a Nigerian by title Liko as the man or woman who tasked him to pay the cheque into Gumah’s account.
NIB has due to the fact terminated the appointment of suspect Addison.
