BY Issah Olegor
An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced an Indian national, Shubham Sharma, to five years’ imprisonment after he was found guilty of possessing large quantities of fake Ghanaian and foreign currencies.
The court, presided over by Joseph Yennuban Kunsong, delivered the sentence after evidence presented during the trial established that Sharma had replaced genuine company funds with counterfeit notes while working as a manager at a private firm in Accra.
According to prosecutors, Sharma had in his possession fake GH¢200 notes totalling GH¢1,976,000 as well as counterfeit US$100 notes amounting to US$191,900.
The discovery of the fake currencies triggered a criminal investigation after the company’s management reported suspicious discrepancies in its cash reserves.
The prosecution, led by Wisdom Alorwu, a Chief Inspector of Police, told the court that the complainant in the case is a businessman and Chief Executive Officer of a company involved in the production of air fresheners.
The businessman reported that Sharma, who served as a manager at the company, had replaced genuine money in the firm’s custody with fake notes.
Investigators revealed that Sharma was responsible for receiving and safeguarding company funds. During the course of his employment, he allegedly gained access to the company’s safe while the owner was on a trip abroad.
Prosecutors said Sharma broke into the safe and substituted unspecified amounts of genuine US dollars with counterfeit notes.
Further investigations uncovered that large sums of Ghana cedi notes stored by the company had also been replaced with fake GH¢200 bills.
To verify the authenticity of the seized currency, the notes were examined by the Bank of Ghana, which confirmed that both the local and foreign currencies recovered during the investigation were counterfeit.
During police interrogations, Sharma admitted that the fake notes were kept in the office under his control.
At the conclusion of the trial, the court handed Sharma four years’ imprisonment for possessing fake local currency and five years for possessing counterfeit foreign currency.
However, the judge ordered that the sentences run concurrently, meaning Sharma will serve a maximum of five years in prison.
The court also took into consideration that Sharma had already spent more than nine months in custody before the final judgment was delivered.
In addition to the prison term, the court issued further directives concerning the seized counterfeit notes. Officials from the Ghana Police Service, the Bank of Ghana, and the court registrar were instructed to ensure the destruction of the fake notes to prevent them from re-entering circulation.
Furthermore, the court ordered that Sharma be deported from Ghana after completing his prison sentence, bringing an end to the case which exposed a significant counterfeit currency scheme involving both local and foreign denominations.
