MONROVIA – Criminal Court ‘C’ has handed down a guilty verdict against nine suspended employees of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC), convicting them of theft of property and criminal conspiracy in one of the most significant petroleum heist cases in recent years.
The convicted men, Andrew P. Nimely, Kingston S. Sneh, Emmanuel G. Garway, Robert S. Alfred, Alphanso Sackie, Beyan A. Cooper, John Kolubah, Peter Z. Tayn, and William V. Gray, were all attached to the Security Department of the LPRC at the time of the crime.
According to court findings, the group conspired to illegally divert a substantial volume of petroleum products from the company’s jetty pipeline between September 1, 2023, and January 2024. The siphoned products, which included gasoline, gas oil, and jet A-1 fuel, amounted to 193,659 gallons, leading to critical supply disruptions for LPRC’s Petroleum Storage Terminal (PST) and several private sector clients, including Srimex-China Union and Connex.
Presiding Judge A. Blamo Dixon, in delivering the verdict, ordered the defendants to pay back a total sum of $941,895.11 to the Government of Liberia and imposed an additional fine of $300 on each of the convicts. The court also mandated the Ministry of Justice to conduct a pre-sentencing investigation to ascertain whether the men are first-time offenders or have a history of criminal conduct.
