A woman and her sister, who forged two Jamaican passports to travel from Guyana to Jamaica and then to the US, were each ordered to pay a $120,000 fine or alternatively serve 12 months in prison when they appeared before Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
Fifty-one-year-old Shivwanti and her sister Shivram Singh, 49, of Lamaha and Albert streets, Queenstown both pleaded guilty to the charges of knowingly and willingly making false statements on a declaration form, uttering falsified passports and using them.
Shivwanti and her sister both admitted that at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport on April 11 they tried to enter Guyana by knowingly and willingly making false statements on their declaration forms.
The sisters also admitted that on the same day, being persons entering Guyana, they tendered falsified Jamaican passports. The two also used those passports to enter Guyana.
Their lawyer Rexford Jackson stated that on April 11, his clients were scheduled to attend an interview at the US Embassy to obtain permanent US visas but they were caught with the false passports. He said the passports were a mere oversight on his clients’ part.
He said the court should take into consideration that his clients had admitted to the offences and in so doing had not wasted the court’s time.
Jackson requested that the magistrate be lenient with his clients.
However, Police Prosecutor Denise Griffith stated that the two sisters left Guyana and travelled to Jamaica in 1985 and while there they falsified documents to obtain Jamaican passports. She said that they were using their Guyanese passports while in Jamaica. Griffith said that the defendants had travelled to the US with false Jamaican passports. She went on to say that when they returned to Guyana on April 11 they used those same passports.
She also stated that the sisters were scheduled to attend an interview at the US Embassy on the same day that they were caught with the false passports.
The magistrate subsequently ordered that the sisters each pay a fine of $120,000 or spend 12 months in prison.
