Two employees of the Guaranty Trust Bank (GT Bank) has been sent to prison by the Monrovia City Court, for allegedly stealing over US$886 thousand and L$10 million from the accounts of former Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) Deputy Governor Charles Sirleaf.
The two GT Bank employees involved are identified as Andrea Doubah an Assigned Account Officer and Genesis David, Head of Operations. Both of them, according to investigation, allegedly affixed their signatures on several fake bank withdrawal slips to extract money from Sirleaf’s accounts.
Defendants Doubah was charged with the commission of theft of property, forgery, aiding consummation of crime and criminal conspiracy while David was subsequently charged charge with criminal conspiracy, and criminal facilitation in line with Chapter 10, Section 10.4 and 10.4 and 10.2 of the revised Penal Law of Liberia. They are pending trial by Court.
The two defendants were arrested and investigated following a complaint filed by Sirleaf’s lawyer Cllr. Jonny Momoh to the Liberia National Police.
In the complaint, it was alleged by the Cllr. Momoh that between 2017, 2018 and 2019 there were several unauthorized withdrawals of monies totaling US$886,580.00 and LD$10,480,000.00 from his clients Mr. Charles Sirleaf saving and salary accounts and a single US$ withdrawal from a joint checking account title Bojelene Guest House Incorporated, operated by Sirleaf and his wife Fanta Donzo Sirleaf as signatories.
He concluded that Sirleaf four accounts and the Guest House account are maintained and preserved at the Guaranty Trust Bank Liberia Limited.
Following the complaints, a team of LNP investigators was constituted to validate the merits, the team immediately proceeded with the investigation by taking several actions including requesting Sirleaf and his wife to provide financial documents in their possession and if possible witnesses to substantiate their complaint.
During the investigation the Criminal Court “A” issues a writ of SUBPEONE DUCES TECUM to be served on the commercial bank of Liberia to provide financial records on some employees of GT-Bank as well as other persons that are not in the employ of the Bank.
Following the SUBPEONE defendant Doubah and David were call for questioning during which David stated that he is clothed with the responsibilities to supervised tellers at the Sinkor branch, and admitted affixing approvals on all of the slips that were used as source documents to allow withdrawals from Charles Sirleaf accounts executed at GT Bank.
Defendant Doubah said that several times the wife of Charles Sirleaf visited the bank to withdraw money from their account, adding that Charles Sirleaf himself usually calls her on phone, through WhatsApp messages, to help withdraw said amount from his account, but did not state how much.
She stated that she hand delivered money to Sirleaf, his wife and diver on several occasions, but the CCTV footage at the bank did not capture Sirleaf and his wife being given money by defendant Doubah, only the diver was captured in the CCTV footage receiving money from the defendant.
During the investigation conducted with the defendants it was established that the two defendants used fake signatures to withdraw Sirleaf’s money from his accounts in his absence, and they admitted affixing their signatures to the various withdrawal slips.
Meanwhile, the defendants were taken to the Monrovia Central Prison while they await Court trial.
