An Accra Circuit Court has ordered a 47-year-old businessman to refund GHC130,000.00 to a man he took the money from under the pretext of securing him an acre of land.
Mohammed Mustapha Huseine took the money from Mr Frank Atoabi but failed to secure the land for him as he (Huseine) did not have land title to the land in question.
However, he denied the offence but was found guilty after trial.
Huseine was again fined GHC7,200.00, in default, he would serve four years imprisonment in hard labour for fraudulent sale of land.
Police Chief Inspector Gulliver Kwabena Tenkorang told the Court that Mr Atoabi, the complainant, was a Freight forwarder residing at Amrahia, near Accra, and Huseini, the convict, was a businessman residing at Madina, also near Accra.
He said in January 2018, the convict told the complainant, who was looking for a piece of land to buy for his building project, that he had land for sale.
Chief Inspector Tenkorang said the complainant showed interest, and the convict took him to a site at Amrahia, where he demarcated a one acre plot of land to him at GHC120,000.00, but when the complainant was about to develop the land, he realised that another person who claimed ownership of the same had started putting up a building on the land.
The Court heard that the complainant confronted the convict, and he admitted that the land in question belonged to the claimant but promised to talk to the claimant on behalf of the complainant.
He said the convict later told the complainant that he had spoken to the claimant of the land and that he was demanding GHC240,000.00 for the same piece of land.
Complainant told the convict that he could not afford such an amount and demanded a refund of his money, the Court heard.
Prosecution said the convict told the complainant that he had another piece of land at Adenta Animal Research which he could offer as a replacement.
Huseine then took the complainant through the back, an unapproved route to Animal Research, and granted him a parcel of land on the premises of Animal Research, but anytime the complainant wanted to visit his land, he was denied access to the land.
All efforts made to get him to issue a complaint with the land document to enable him start his project proved futile, thus, on January 4, 2021, the complainant lodged a complaint with the Police which led to the arrest of Huseine for investigation, Chief Inspector Tenkorang said.
He said Huseine, in his investigation, cautioned that he acquired the said land in 2006 from the Katamanso Stool.
An investigation conducted revealed that the convict did not acquire any plot from Katamanso Stool.
He said a search conducted showed that the land in question belonged to Animal Research and no part of that land had been given to any family.
Prosecution said the convict, realising that the truth had come to light again, told the complainant that he owned a parcel of land at Abokobi and proposed to give the same to the complainant, only to find out that the land belonged to another person.
Huseine, in the process, granted three different parcels of land to the complainant, situated at Armahia Baron, Animal Research-Fafraha and Abokobi and collected GHC114,000.00.
Investigation revealed that all those parcels of land did not belong to him.
Source: GNA