Mr. Michael Nyinaku, CEO of Defunct Beige Bank was warned by a court to expedite settlement to reach an agreement with the state if he was minded to rather than wait to the last-minute.
Mike Nyinaku is answering to charges of theft, money laundering among others, after he was accused of stealing over GH¢340million by a court in Accra, similar to the case William Ato Essien.
William Ato Essien, the Founder of the defunct Capital Bank, who was convicted by the Accra High Court for stealing GH¢192.5 million of funds from the bank settled with the state to pay back what is known as restitution.
After almost three years of trial, Essien faced the judgment where he was found guilty on his own plea and avoided custodial sentence after he reached an agreement with the state to pay GH¢90 million to the state.
The agreement was pursuant to Section 35 of the Courts Act, 1993 (Act 459), which allows accused persons standing trial for causing financial loss to the state to pay the money and possibly avoid a custodial sentence.
By virtue of pleading guilty, the court also barred Essien from being appointed as a director or holding any key management position in any bank or financial institution in line with the Banks and Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions Act, 2016 (Act 930).Mike Nyinaku has a similar case like William Essien and trial judge Justice Mrs Afia Serwah Asare-Botwe has issued a stern warning to Mr. Nyinaku to “timeously” settle the matter with the state if he plans on activating Section 35 of the Courts Act like Ato Essien did.But Mr. Nyinaku’s lawyers say they have not decided yet.
The facts of the case at the High Court indicated that when Beige Bank’s licence was revoked in August 2018, a review of the bank bank’s financial and other records revealed some suspicious and unusual transactions which were subsequently reported.The investigations revealed that between 2015 and 2018, Mr. Nyinaku allegedly used various means to transfer huge sums of money to companies related to him, and for his personal benefit.
The funds transferred were depositors’ funds lodged with Beige Bank, the investigators claimed.
Between 2017 and 2018, Mr. Nyinaku caused the transfer of 10,071 fixed deposit accounts held with Beige Bank – in which various customers placed a total of GH¢448.6million to Beige Capital Asset Management Limited (BCAM) – without the knowledge and consent of these customers.
Investigations also revealed that Mr. Nyinaku, between the years 2017 and 2018, caused the transfer of 35 fixed deposit investments of 23 Beige Bank customers totalling GH¢141million to the Beige Group.Investigations further revealed that some time in March 2018, Mr. Nyinaku caused a fictitious second account to be opened in the name of First Africa Savings and Loans (FASL), an existing account-holder with Beige Bank, without the knowledge of FASL’s Board and management
