A 25-year-old National Service Personnel, Jesper Kobina Mensah, has been remanded into police custody by the Circuit Court in Accra over allegations of stealing GH¢303,950 through unauthorised electronic transfers from a customer’s account at Stanbic Bank Ghana Ltd.
The case, presided over by Her Honour Sedinam Awo Kwadam, was called on Tuesday, where Mensah faced a single charge of stealing, contrary to Section 124(1) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), as amended by Paragraph 4 of NLCD 398, and Section 107 of the Electronic Transaction Act, 2008 (Act 772). He pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The prosecution, led by DSP Emmanuel Nyamekye, opposed bail and requested more time to complete investigations, a submission upheld by the court, resulting in Mensah being remanded.
Stanbic Bank Ghana Ltd, represented in court by its Manager of Investigations, Ms. Genevieve Ama Gadikor, lodged the complaint following a report made on July 15, 2025.
According to the facts presented, a Ghanaian customer based in South Africa noticed suspicious withdrawals from his account, amounting to GH¢303,950, which had been moved into multiple MTN Mobile Money wallets. The transfers were traced to numbers registered in the names of Abraham Asiedu, Stephen Eshun, and Fatau Sulley.
Investigators arrested Sulley on July 28, 2025. He was identified as a Binance merchant involved in trading the cryptocurrency USDT.
During questioning, Sulley admitted receiving the funds through Mobile Money but insisted he was only acting as a middleman in crypto transactions and had no direct involvement in the theft.
On August 28, 2025, police tracked Mensah to his hideout at Nungua, a suburb of Accra. A search of his residence uncovered an assortment of items suspected to be linked to cybercrime activities, including nine mobile phones, two laptops, 108 registered Telecel SIM cards, 27 unused Telecel starter packs, 72 registered MTN SIM cards, 88 unused MTN starter packs, and other devices.
In his caution statement, Mensah confirmed being the user of the two phone numbers linked to the illegal transactions and acknowledged receiving the money.
However, he claimed that he had acted under the instructions of unidentified Chinese nationals, who directed him to convert the stolen funds into USDT and forward the cryptocurrency via Binance.
Detective Sergeant James Kwesi Turkson, the lead investigator, told the court that inquiries were ongoing to trace the alleged international accomplices and unravel the wider network behind the operation.
Mensah will remain in custody while the case proceeds, with his next court appearance expected to be scheduled soon.