‘Susu’ manager jailed for robbery

Crime and punishment of Thursday, December 24, 2020

Source: GNA

2020-12-24

A 32-year-old “Susu” manager who misappropriated GHS 46,444 belonging to 61 clients was sentenced to four months in prison by an Accra circuit court.

Amos Baffoe, charged with theft, pleaded guilty.

Baffoe claimed he had cash problems and used the money to pay the fees.

The Court, chaired by Ms Evelyn Asamoah, convicted Baffoe on his own statement and sentenced him accordingly.

The Court said it considered the fact that Baffoe was a first time offender and reimbursed GHS11,000.00 of the amount.

The prosecutor, Chief Inspector Emmanuel Haligah, said the plaintiff is the CEO of C. J SUSU Services.

Haligah said that Baffoe was the manager of the Kotobabi branch of CJ Services.

The prosecution said that the complainant and the accused were residents of Kotobabi and the pig farm, respectively, all in Accra.

Haligah said that Baffoe had been working with the Company since 2018 as a Manager and that he was the only person who had access to clients’ accounts in terms of withdrawals and deposits.

The prosecution said that in February this year, some clients went to susu’s office to withdraw money, but when their accounts were checked, they realized that there was no money in them, but they insisted that they had money in their accounts.

Mr. Haligah said the whistleblower conducted investigations and found that the defendants had tampered with customers’ phone numbers and withdrawn their money, and as a result were not receiving withdrawal alerts on their phones.

He said that a report was made to the police in Kotobabi in Accra and Baffoe was arrested.

Haligah said the defendant in his warning statement admitted the crime and said he was facing a financial crisis.

He said that while Baffoe was in custody, the administration conducted its own investigations and found that the defendant had withdrawn more money from the accounts of other clients, who was granted bail from the police to allow an audit of the accounts of the Organization.

Mr. Haligah said that on March 21 of this year, the plaintiff submitted an audit report conducted on Baffoe’s accounts, indicating that he misappropriated cash in the amount of GHS 46,444.00 belonging to 61 clients of the Baffoe Company.

“A copy of the audit report was delivered to the accused and he was also advised to go to the institution to reconcile the audit report of the complainant. Upon receiving the copy of the report, the accused went into hiding but was later arrested again, ”said the prosecution.