A businessman who allegedly defrauded two foreign investors of an amount of US$281,500 has been sent back to custody by an Accra circuit court after being admitted to bail about two years ago.
The court presided over by Mrs. Helen Vivian Amoah took the decision after the prosecution had brought to her knowledge about a similar offence the accused had recently committed.
Samuel Kofi Kontoh was arraigned before the court in 2012 for allegedly collecting the said amount from the complainants under the pretext of securing 30 kilogrammes of gold bars for them.
The accused person is alleged to have acted together with one Nana, who is currently at large, to defraud the Congo and the South African nationals who are currently residing in Ghana.
The accused and his accomplice allegedly took the said amount from the complainant with a promise that they would ship the said quantity of gold to them in Dubai, but in the end shipped 18 bars of gold, which were detected to be fake.
The accused person, upon false representation, refused to resolve the issue with the complainants and kept on postponing their meeting dates. On September 18, 2012, he was traced and arrested by the police.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit crime and defrauding by false pretense. He is expected to re-appear before the court on March 31, 2014
The facts are that in April 2012, the accused person met the complainant and introduced himself as a Director of Dusburn Co-operative, dealers in gold.
The Prosecutor, Chief Inspector Charles Chester told the court that the accused person presented false documents to the complainant, and later took them to Akwatia in the Eastern Region and introduced them to the second accused person, who is currently at large, as a businessman.
He said both accused persons as well took them to a galamsey mining site to show them that the site was their concession.
�Moreover, the accused persons met the complainants at Holiday Inn Hotel with associates, where they eventually collected cash in the sum of US$281,500 and sold to them 30 kilogrammes bars of gold,� the prosecutor added.
According to him, the accused person did the necessary documentation at FEDEX EXPRESS in the name of his company, where the 30 kilogrammes bars of gold would be shipped through the company to Dubai.
Chief Inspector Chester stressed that the accused person, after that, convinced the complainants that he would travel with them to Dubai to enter into a memorandum of understanding with their business partners, in order for them to do more business with them.
He said the complainant secured for him all the necessary travelling documents, including a visa and a plane ticket.
�The accused person, however, failed to meet the complainants in Dubai as agreed upon, and when the complainant left for Dubai to receive the goods, it was detected that the accused persons and their accomplices shipped 18 kilogrammes bars instead of the 30 kilogrammes bars of gold they paid for,� he added.
He continued in his narration that when the 18 kilogrammes bars of gold were tested at the laboratory they proved to be fake, and when the complainants called the accused person and informed him, he asked them to return to Ghana so as to resolve the issue.
The prosecutor mentioned that the accused person again refused to show up when the complainant arrived in August, 2012, as planned, and kept giving excuses until he was traced and arrested on September 18, 2012.
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