Kwame Korankye, 37, unemployed, was on Tuesday sentenced to 12 months imprisonment in hard labour for stealing two drums of palm oil valued at GHC 500 by the Kade District Magistrate Court.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal and stealing.
Kwame Charles, who Korankye claimed conspired with him and one Agyei who he said hired them to steal, are at large and the court had issued bench warrants for their arrest.
Prosecuting, Police Inspector Francis Cobbina said the complainant Abena Agbevee was a dealer in palm oil.
He said on July 22, she bought five drums of palm oil and kept them at her oil processing centre along the Kade/Kusi road for collection later.
On July 26 Korankye and Charles told the driver of a bus that they had drums of palm oil that they wanted to convey to Kade.
The driver drove them to the oil mill on the Kade/Kusi road where Korankye and his accomplices showed him the drums of palm oil to be conveyed.
The driver was again sent to other places where cans of palm oil were collected.
The prosecutor said during the operation, the driver suspected that the two men might be thieves and he later abandoned them and drove his
vehicle to the police station with the oil.
People later went to the charge office and identified some of the containers to be theirs and the complainant also identified hers.
Later Korankye was arrested by the youth of Kade and was handed over to the police.