The five were jointly charged with conspiracy to commit crime

Five individuals have been arrested in connection with the printing of counterfeit GH¢200 and $100 notes, amounting to GH¢2.3 million and $191,900 respectively.

The accused, who appeared before an Accra Circuit Court on Friday, are Shubham Sharma (General Manager), James Mozu Bonaparte (Graphic Designer), Prince Owusu Ahenkorah (Photographer/Video Director), and Jonathan Kwame Appiah and Solomon Adjetey Adjei, both Graphic Designers.

The five have been jointly charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and were arrested at various locations across Accra.

Sharma, Bonaparte, and Ahenkorah face an additional charge of possession of forged notes, while Appiah and Adjei have been charged with uttering forged notes.

The court, presided over by Mr. Samuel Bright Acquah, did not take their pleas and remanded them into lawful custody to reappear on July 3, 2025.

The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Wisdom Alorwu, requested that the accused be remanded to allow for further investigations.

According to information gathered by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the complainant is an Accra-based businessman whose name has been withheld.

The arrests followed an intelligence-led operation on June 16, 2025.

Sharma, the first accused, is alleged to have stolen $230,000 from the complainant’s safe located in his bedroom after embezzling company funds. Investigations further revealed that Sharma replaced the stolen money with counterfeit Ghanaian cedi and US dollar notes.

A search conducted at the company’s cash office at Adabraka Industrial Area uncovered fake GH¢200 notes totaling GH¢2,318,000 and counterfeit $100 notes amounting to $191,900.

Sharma is reported to have admitted to keeping the counterfeit notes in the office.

Further investigations showed that Sharma paid Bonaparte GH¢25,000 for the fake cedi notes and GH¢15,000 for the fake dollars. It was also established that Bonaparte and Ahenkorah conspired to supply Sharma with the counterfeit currency.

When security personnel searched Ahenkorah, they retrieved five bundles of fake GH¢200 notes.

Upon interrogation, Ahenkorah implicated Appiah, who was identified as the manager of the printing press that produced the counterfeit notes. Appiah subsequently led the police to arrest Adjei, who was alleged to have handed over the fake currency to Ahenkorah.

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