Two siblings who conspired to steal an amount of GHc4,925.53 have been remanded into police custody by the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) Circuit Court.
Michael Akurugu and Emmanuel Akurugu, were said to have agreed to and acted together with a common purpose to commit the crime of stealing.
They were charged with 11 counts of unlawful stealing and pleaded not guilty to the offence and would reappear before the Court presided over by Mr. Abdul Razak Musah, on January 18, this year.
Prosecuting, Police Chief Inspector Michael Koole, told the Court that the complainant Gifty Siaw Gyimah is an engineer in Accra, Thomas Mensah, an air-conditioned mechanic at South Suntreso, in Kumasi, while Desmond Nkansah is also an engineer in Kumasi.
She said the accused persons, Michael Akurugu, 21, (A1) is a washing bay attendant at Friend's garden, south suntreso and his brother Emmanuel Akurugu, 26, (A2) is also a student at Kumasi Technical University.
Police Chief Inspector Koole said on December 31, last year, Gifty Gyimah's father, Yaw Dwumah sent her Hyundai Santafe sports car with registration number GN 5606-21 to Friend's garden washing bay for washing.
At 20;41 hours the same day, she had an alert from her Ecobank account that she had purchased an Apple phone on an online transaction.
Prosecution said on the same day, she received the same alert four consecutive times making a total amount of GHc521.53.00.
He said upon their investigations, they realised A1 who washed the car was behind all the transactions.
Prosecution said Gifty together with his father went to the washing bay and confronted him about it, he admitted having stolen the ATM cards from a purse in the car.
He said further checks also revealed that Gifty's Ecobank and UBA ATM visa cards were also found on A1's phone.
Police Chief Inspector Koole said on June 02, 2021, Thomas Mensah sent his Honda CRV to the same washing bay and A1 was the one who washed the car.
He said in the course of washing A1 took a photograph of Fidelity bank ATM visa card belonging to Thomas and used it for online transactions from June 02 to August 2021, in which he was able to steal GHc4,002.00.
Prosecution said on December 19, 2021, Desmond Nkansah also sent his Toyota Land Cruiser Prado vehicle to the same washing bay for A1 to wash for him.
He said the complainant received an alert stating that GHc402.00 had been deducted from his Ecobank account for using his ATM card to do an online transaction.
Prosecution said on January 05, this year, a team of four men from the National Signal Bureau, Accra, arrested A1 and A2 at Adum and Kwadaso respectively and handed them to the Ashanti Regional Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
He said upon investigations, it came to light that A1 always took pictures of his clients ATM cards and sent them to A2 for validation on a website to reveal information about the owners of the cards.
A search conducted on the two also showed different bank ATM cards with different names found on them.
After investigations, they were charged with the offences and arraigned before the Court.
GNA
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