An unemployed man, who posed as a police officer with the SWAT Unit of the Ghana Police Service to steal two hire cars has been ordered by an Accra Circuit Court to be held in jail for eight years.
Stephen Yaw Asiedu Debrah had rented these cars from two car rental operators and ended up forging the documents on the two vehicles to sell them.
Cephas Ofoe Sechie, an accomplice, who stood trial with Asiedu Debrah, was also sentenced to six years imprisonment by the circuit court presided over by Priscilla Dapaah Mireku.
This was after the court found them guilty of criminal charges of conspiracy to commit crime and stealing.
Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) Agnes Boafo told the court that Asiedu Debrah introduced himself to Richard Quansah, a car rental operator with Maxi Plus Ventures, a car renting company at Legon, Accra, as an officer of the Police SWAT Unit and showed a picture of himself in police uniform on his mobile phone to convince Quansah.
Asiedu Debrah told Quansah that he was looking for a car to hire for two days and the latter rented to him a Toyota Corolla saloon car.
He called later to ask for an additional car and Quansah arranged to get another Toyota Corolla from a friend in the car rental business, Collins Ansah.
Asiedu-Debrah also requested for extension of time for the first car, which unknown to Quansah he had given to Sechie to look for someone to buy.
They contracted one Osei Bediako, who is now on the run to forge the documents on the vehicle and affixed the picture of Sechie as the car owner.
With that, they used the vehicle as collateral to take a loan of Ghs20,000.00 from one Awudu Mohammed and attempted selling the car to him but when Mohammed took it to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the documents were found to be fake.
They used the second car to take another loan. The two cars have since been recovered from Mohammed and one Clement, a sprayer.
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