An Accra High Court has granted Michael Nyinaku, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Beige Bank Limited (Beige Bank) a GH¢200 million bail with three sureties over a GH¢1.2 billion alleged theft.
Justice Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe ordered that two of the sureties should be justified with landed property equivalent to the bail bond and the assets should be valued by the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited (AESL) or Land Valuation Division of the Lands Commission.
The Justice asked that the prosecutor filed its disclosures by December 9, 2022. The defense counsel is also expected to reply by the time the court has the Case Management Conference on December 22, 2022.
Mr. Nyinaku, the accused person, is to deposit his passport with the Court’s registry as well as report every Monday and Friday at 0900 hours to the investigator of the case.
Mr. Nyinaku has been charged with stealing, fraudulent breach of trust, and money laundering, which he denied in Court.
The Facts of the Case
Mr. Alfred Tuah-Yeboah, Deputy Attorney General, giving the facts in the court, said Nyinaku was the former Chief Executive Officer of the Beige Bank and on August 1, 2018, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) revoked the banking license of Beige Bank and placed it in receivership.
A review of the financial and other records of the Bank conducted by the receiver and his team identified several suspicious and unusual transactions, which were subsequently reported to law enforcement agencies for investigation.
The prosecutor said investigations revealed that between 2015 and 2018, the accused person, as CEO of the Bank, had allegedly used various means to transfer huge sums of monies to companies related to him and for his personal benefit.
The prosecutor alleged that the fund transferred were depositors’ funds lodged with the Beige Bank. It noted that between 2017 and 2018, Nyinaku caused the transfer of 10,071 fixed deposit account held with Beige Bank in which various customers placed a total of GH¢448,636,210.21 to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited (BCAM), without the knowledge and consent of the customers.
Investigations also revealed that the accused person between 2017 and 2018 caused the transfer of 35 fixed deposit investments of 23 customers of Beige Bank valued GH¢141,042,348.92 to the Beige Group, a Company wholly owned by the accused person and its majority shareholders of Beige Bank.
The Fictitious FASL Account
The prosecutor added further investigations revealed that in March 2018, the accused person had caused a “fictitious” second account to be opened in the name of First African Savings and Loans (FASL), an existing account holder with Beige Bank, without the knowledge of the board and management of FASL. It said the accused person then caused the transfer of the sum of GH¢320 million from the accounts of various Beige Bank customers into the bank accounts of BCAM held with Beige Bank.
Then, GH¢320 million was subsequently transferred from the BCAM account held with the Beige Bank into the “fictitious” FASL account that had been opened in Beige Bank’s books on the instructions of the accused person allegedly, said the prosecution. The prosecutor added that between March 2018 and August 2018, GH¢21,123,270.96 out of the GH¢320 million was transferred from the “fictitious” FASL bank account to some two individuals and ten companies, nine of which were related to Nyinaku, on his instructions.
Again, between 2015 and 2017, the accused person through the use of payment vouchers had caused the sum of GH¢1,465,000.00 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be paid to himself and other persons, the Court heard.
Additionally, between 2016 and 2017, the accused, through the use of payment vouchers, had caused a total amount of GH¢141,742,087.70 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be transferred to a number of companies and individuals for his benefits allegedly, it said.
The prosecutor noted that the transactions were recorded in the general ledger account of the Bank described as Prepayment- a Project Work Account and that between 2017 and 2018, the accused person using payment vouchers, e-mails, and memo’s had further caused the sum of GH¢118,076,813.09 of depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank to be transferred to several companies and individuals for his benefit allegedly.
The Court heard that investigations have established that the money the accused allegedly dishonestly appropriated from the Beige Bank remained unpaid as of August 1, 2018, when the Bank’s license was revoked by BoG.
Mr Addo Atuah, the defense counsel for Nyinaku in praying for bail said the accused has always appeared before the court since his arrest in 2018 and would always come to court to stand trial and would not interfere with witnesses.
