Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has arrested three persons for their alleged attempt to steal GH¢3.5 million from a bank account belonging to the Ministry of Energy.

The alleged fraudsters are said to have cloned the Energy Ministry’s cheque and attempted to deposit into the account of Guma Oil at Zenith Bank.

“According to the facts of the case, the cheque was never withdrawn and the Ministry had no contract with the suspects involved,” a report by Citi FM said.

Deputy Executive Director of Operations of EOCO, Nana Antwi, told Citi FM that the agency has launched a manhunt for another suspect in the matter.

“Initially, it was felt that some persons within the Ministry [of Energy] had attempted to steal money belonging to the Ministry. The suspicions were narrowed to the accounts department so there was a swoop on the department where various personalities were questioned.

“It was there that it came up that the internal mechanism had identified an attempt and had even made a report to the Ministry’s police station and that some investigation had already commenced. That notwithstanding, we pushed on and spread our tentacles of investigation where we contacted Zenith and NIB and then the tracing started [leading to the arrests],” Nana Antwi said.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are finalising processes to take the matter to court, according to the report.