Scrap dealer jailed for stealing car engine

A 19-year-old scrap dealer has been jailed at the Kumasi Central Prison for stealing a car engine.

The Twedie District Magistrate Court sentenced Salim Awudu to six months imprisonment after finding him guilty of stealing.

The young man had served two months of his sentence when Crime Check Foundation (CCF) met him at the prison during one of its working tours.

Salim told crimecheckghana.org that he was apprehended after he had sold the engine for Ghc 1,500 to a spare parts dealer at Magazine spare parts market in Kumasi.

He said a driver led him to see the engine after the car owner had changed the part for his Sprinter vehicle.

“I lifted the engine on my motorbike but couldn’t take it away because I had run out of fuel,” he said.

Salim indicated that he then sold it to the spare part dealer nearby to enable him to fill his fuel tank.

“The spare part dealer is somebody I knew personally,” he indicated.

The scrap boy said he was nabbed the following day when he came to pass where he sold the engine out and escorted to the police station.

The now-freed convict said he was charged with stealing and was jailed after failing to pay a fine of Ghc 640 imposed on him by the client.

Crime Check Foundation through the contribution of a US-based philanthropy group, ‘Star of David’ paid his fine for his release.

This was done under CCF’s Petty Offenders project to decongest prisons.