The Special Prosecutor (OSP) has alleged that former Sanitation Minister Cecilia Dapaah has employed the use of various aliases when registering companies to obscure her involvement in receiving profits from business transactions.
In one particular case, she adopted an alternative name, distinct from her legal and widely recognized name, to conceal her association with a real estate company that generated substantial profits for her. These disclosures are detailed in court documents submitted by the OSP to the High Court in an effort to secure confirmation of the freezing of her accounts and the seizure of her assets.
“The OSP’s criminal intelligence further suggested that the first respondent, as a Minister of State, was engaged in an undisclosed and undeclared real estate business in which she obscured and concealed the transactions by employing the use of aliases to avoid detection of the actual ownership of the business and properties, while cleverly receiving the proceeds of the transactions in her bank accounts and investments,” the Court document read.
The OSP added that: “criminal intelligence suggested that the first respondent had unexplained large cash sums of money (far above her income as a Minister of State) secreted and stashed up in her residence; and that her house-helps had allegedly helped themselves to part of said sums of money through larceny.”
Furthermore, the OSP stated that during a search of the Minister’s residences, substantial sums of money were uncovered, and she was unable to provide satisfactory explanations regarding the sources of these funds.
“During the search conducted in her presence, the first respondent disavowed and claimed no knowledge of the presence of the said cash sums in the residence. The conduct of the first respondent, being a public officer, heightened the suspicion of the authorised officers of the OSP that the cash sums were tainted property,” the document explained.
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The Minister had previously taken legal action against two of her domestic employees for allegedly stealing significant sums of cash in various currency denominations from her home, prompting the OSP’s inquiry into the origins of her wealth.
According to the court documents, the cash in question was purportedly stolen, and the funds discovered during the search lacked identifiable origins, raising suspicions of illicit activities.
