Accra court grants farmer GH¢900,000.00 bail over alleged gold fraud
An Accra Circuit Court has granted a GH¢900,000.00 bail with three sureties to a farmer who allegedly conspired with others to defraud a businessman in a gold deal.
Felix Nyeduah, 70, a farmer, allegedly collected a part payment of $72,400, an equivalent of GH¢868,800.00, from Mr Jones Dodoo, the complainant, under the pretext of shipping 10 kilograms of gold to him in Tokyo.
Nyeduah is facing two charges of defrauding by false pretences. He has pleaded not guilty.
He was charged together with three other people, now at large. They are Odei, Isaac, and Emmanuel.
The court presided over by Mrs Susana Eduful ordered that the sureties must be justified with landed properties.
The case has been adjourned to August 16, 2023.
Assistant Superintendent of Police Emmanuel Haligah told the Court that the complainant was a consultant domiciled in Tokyo, while Nyeduah was a farmer, who lived at Asamankese in the Eastern Region.
It said in July 2022, Dodoo decided to venture into the gold business and was introduced to Nyeduah by one Kwasi Mensah David alias Amuzu.
The prosecution said Dodoo then expressed interest to purchase three kilograms of gold and Nyeduah offered to supply ten kilograms to him on the condition that he (complainant) paid for the cost of shipment of the gold to Tokyo and remitted the principal to him after the sale commodity.
It said the Dodoo naively agreed to the offers made to him by Nyeduah and made a cash payment of $25,000 to Odei, who posed as a Shipper.
It said Isaac, one of the persons at large, later handed over one kilogram of fake gold to Dodoo and collected the sum of $40.000 as collateral for the ten kilograms of gold to be shipped to Tokyo.
The prosecution said Dodoo, after making the payments, left for Tokyo to await the arrival of the gold but was deceived by Nyeduah and Emmanuel to pay an additional sum of $7000 and $400 to an agent in Tokyo before the consignment could be delivered to him.
Dodoo paid the amount but realised that he had been duped after several efforts to get his 10 kilograms of gold proved futile.
He returned to Ghana but could not trace Nyeduah and his accomplices.
Dodoo later tested the one kilogram of gold that he earlier collected from Isaac, discovered it was fake, and reported the matter to the police.
On July 14, 2022, Nyeduah was arrested at Akim Oda for attempting to defraud another victim.
Upon interrogation, Nyeduah admitted all the offences in his caution statement.
Further investigations revealed that Nyeduah and the other accomplices were a fraud gang based in Accra.
The prosecution said the investigation was ongoing to arrest the other accomplices.
Source: GNA