Fake truck deal lands Engineer 3 years behind bars

An Accra Circuit Court has handed a 36-month prison sentence with hard labour to a 43-year-old agricultural engineer, Abraham Asudam, for scamming a businessman out of GHS150,000 under the guise of importing a tipper truck.

The court, presided over by Mr. Isaac Addo, found Asudam guilty of defrauding by false pretences. Although he had initially denied the charge, evidence proved otherwise. According to the facts, he received the money in December 2020 from Mr. George Asudam (no relation) after claiming he had foreign partners in Belgium who could facilitate the truck's delivery.

During the trial, the judge acknowledged that Asudam was a first-time offender and had already spent some time in custody. The court had even delayed sentencing to give him a chance to pay back an outstanding GHS30,000—but he failed to do so.

“Despite repeated adjournments to allow the accused to refund the money, he declined. The court is therefore left with no choice but to impose a sentence that will serve as a deterrent,” Judge Addo declared.

In addition to the jail term, the court has ordered Asudam to reimburse the remaining GHS30,000 to the complainant.

During the trial, ASP Seth Frimpong, who led the prosecution, revealed that the convict had issued forged documents, including a fake payment receipt and a bogus truck chassis number, all supposedly from a non-existent company called Power Vehicle Innovation. He assured the businessman the truck would arrive within a month—but then disappeared.

Efforts to reach him proved futile until the police tracked him down following a formal complaint. Investigations confirmed that Asudam was not a registered vehicle dealer and had fabricated all the paperwork. The police managed to recover GHS20,000 from him, which has been kept as evidence.