Lawyer Ernestina Obboh Botchwey has urged the public to endeavour to exercise maximum caution when purchasing items, cautioning that one can land in jail for up to fifteen years for making wrong purchases such as buying stolen items from unapproved or unlicensed dealers.
Ms Botchwey, who works as an Assistant Public Defender at the Legal Aid Commission, had earlier on her YouTube channel explained that Ghana’s laws provide that a person who dishonestly receives the products of crime such as stealing or robbery shall be punished just as the persons who committed the actual crime of stealing or robbery, illustrating that the crime of robbing with an offensive weapon carries a minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment and so the buyer or receiver of the products of the robbery with an offensive weapon shall also be given the same minimum sentence after the Courts have taken everything into consideration and duly convicted him or her of the crime of dishonestly receiving.
Buttressing her position on point l, she stated she knows someone who is currently serving a 15-year jail term for buying a phone from the wrong place.
“I know someone who is in prison for 15 years because he bought a phone at the wrong place. Please be careful in your trading,” she admonished.
