Former GREDA boss Tweneboah jailed 2 years for sim box fraud
A former President of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Dr Alexander Kofi Tweneboah, was yesterday sentenced to two years’ imprisonment by the Financial and Economic Crimes Division of the Accra High Court for engaging in SIM box fraud.
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The court, presided over by Mrs Justice Afia Serwah, found Dr Tweneboah guilty on three counts of providing electronic communication equipment without licence, possessing illegal device and knowingly obstructing and interfering with the sending, transmission, delivery and reception of communication.
He had pleaded not guilty.
“The accused person is the one who set up the entire enterprise and benefitted from it. Judging by his status in society, he should have known better,’’ the court said.
Hide and seek
Journalists who went to the court had a hard time trying to take a picture of Dr Tweneboah.
It was a hide-and-seek game as the convict moved from one corner of the Law Court Complex to another, with journalists at his heels.
He was eventually whisked away from a rear entrance of the court premises, with his face covered.
Background
Dr Tweneboah was arrested at his residence at Baatsona on the Spintex Road near Accra on January 15, 2015 where several items, including one SIM Box with a 64-slot SIM server, a 4G Internet modem, one laptop and a mini-antenna, were retrieved.
Prior to his arrest, three persons had been arrested with the gadgets but they denied knowledge of the items and mentioned Dr Tweneboah as the owner of the house and the equipment as well.
Some of the other items retrieved from the operation were a SIM Box machine, SIM cards of the various telecommunications networks, computers, laptops, heavy duty batteries, internal antennae, an ACP battery back-up and Internet routers.
Fine
Apart from the jail term, the court also ordered Dr Tweneboah to pay a fine of GH¢24,000 for the first two counts or in default serve an additional two years in prison.
He was also slapped with another fine of GH¢48,000 for the third count, in default of which he would serve a three-year jail term.
The court further ordered the National Communications Authority (NCA), in collaboration with the court’s registry, to destroy the SIM cards and the SIM Box machine that were used to commit the crime.
It, however, ordered the NCA to donate the laptop and the modem used in the act to a deprived school.
No need
Before sentencing the convict, the court said he could have avoided a jail term if he had refunded the money the state lost as a result of his illegal activity.
“Sentencing is the very last resort. When people go to prison, the state does not get the money it deserves.
“It was just a matter of monetary loss to the state which he could have easily refunded. It shows how remorseless people can be,’’ the court said.
It made the remarks following a plea for mitigation by counsel for Dr Tweneboah, Mr Fiifi Abban, who claimed that the state had failed to reveal the amount of money that it lost from his client’s activities.
He also said Dr Tweneboah’s family had been affected negatively by the incident.
“His daughter is even contemplating changing her surname,’’ he said.
He, therefore, pleaded for leniency for his client.