Kumasi, May 5, GNA - A circuit court at Kumasi on Thursday sentenced a security guard to five years imprisonment for defrauding two persons of 13.3 million cedis.

Collins Mensah, 32, pleaded guilty and will pay back the amount after serving the jail term.

Police Chief Inspector Michael Tsedey, told the court presided over by Mr Bright Mensah that in May last year, Mensah showed a letter to the complainants, Dorcas Afriyie, a hairdresser and Benjamin Oduro, a mechanic, purported to be a won Canadian raffle with an instruction to him to bring five people to Canada.

The complainants showed interest and Dorcas paid seven million cedis while Oduro also paid 6.3 million cedis out of 11 million cedis each demanded by Mensah.

The prosecution said when the complainants did not see any good signs of the travel they sent a fax message to the Canadian Immigration Office to find out the authenticity of the code numbers the accused gave them.

Chief Inspector Tsedey said a reply from the office showed that the numbers had been faked and that the whole transaction was a sham. When Mensah realised the turn of events, he went into hiding until the police arrested him at his hideout at Medoma, near Kumasi on May 2.