-on the run for drug trafficking
By Oluatoyin Alleyne
A bogus doctor, who was allowed to set up shop in Lethem for nearly two months and hire staff from the Lethem Hospital, has been outed as an alleged Venezuelan drug dealer on the run.
When a man calling himself Dr Juan Carlos Stapleton Rodriguez rented rooms from the owner of a bed and breakfast hotel, he presented documents purporting to be issued by the Ministry of Health, granting him a licence to practice in Guyana as a doctor. He then opened his practice, hired the medex and two nurses from the Lethem Hospital and started seeing patients.
His story was that although he was born in Venezuela, he lived in London for a number of years and had just gone through a nasty divorce and needed a clean break from the life he once knew. However, before he fled Lethem with only a small package last Wednesday, he admitted to hotel owner Elaine Foo that he was a convicted drug dealer who is now running from his former associates who were demanding money for drugs that were seized by the authorities.
Stabroek News has since seen information that Rodriguez, who sometimes uses Stapleton as his last name and passes himself off as a professor, was held for trafficking in narcotics and sentenced in his home country, Venezuela. A wanted a bulletin was also issued for him in St Lucia as recently as February of this year after he skipped bail on fraud charges.
According to the man’s conviction sheet, seen by this newspaper, he was arrested in April 2004 at the Maiquetia Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela as he was about to board a British Airway flight. He was reportedly acting nervously and it was later discovered that he had some 80 vials of cocaine in his stomach. He pleaded guilty before Justice Dr Celestina Mendez in October 2004, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was 25 at the time. While the conviction said the man would have been released on December 27, 2013, it is not clear how Rodriquez is now free.
Among his patients during his two-month stint as a doctor was an army lieutenant and a pastor in the area, and according to reports some patients had paid him up to $55,000 in medical bills. Persons were drawn to the doctor’s office by his promise to take samples for testing in Boa Vista, Brazil, for just $4,000. No consultation fee was required to see the doctor. He also spoke about big plans to open a pharmacy and later build a hospital in Lethem.
Contacted last evening, Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy said he knew nothing of a Dr Rodriguez operating in Lethem and would have to investigate the matter. However, the minister said his ministry does not issue licences for doctors to practice in Guyana as this is done by the Medical Council of Guyana. Efforts to contact Dr Galton Roberts, head of the Medical Council of Guyana, were futile. However, Minister Ramsammy was doubtful that the council would have granted a licence to a foreign national to open a private practice in Guyana without the person first working at a hospital under supervision. The minister explained that the individual would have had to have first been issued with an institutional licence and after about a year working under supervision would have been licensed to open private practice. “The council would first have to verify they have the prerequisite skill to practice before they are given a licence to work privately,” the minister stressed last evening.
‘Felt hurt’
Last evening Foo and other residents told Stabroek News that people in Lethem, who were obviously duped by the smoothing talking Rodriguez, were “very hurt” by the fact the doctor was a fake. They said that many persons flocked his practice since proper medical care is something almost foreign to residents. “It was a case of drowning men clutching to straws; that is how badly people need medical care in Lethem,” Foo said. She said Rodriguez left Lethem by foot on Wednesday evening, after he was confronted by his staff.
He had rented two rooms from her location; one he lived in and the other he used as an office, and most of the furniture in his office was hers but the shelves were lined with medication, all of which he left behind along with clothing that has since been taken to the Lethem hospital.
According to Foo, the man first rented a room from her, explaining that he was on holiday. But he later expressed the desire to remain in Lethem and open his private medical practice. He told the woman that he had just come from London following a nasty divorce, which saw his wife gaining custody of their two children. “He said he heard about Guyana and Lethem from another doctor who had visited and he decided to come to see the place and he said he liked it and would like to settle here,” the woman said.
After indicating he wanted to practice as a doctor in Lethem, Foo said she told him he would have to get a licence from the authorities in Georgetown before practising. He left shortly after, saying he was travelling to Georgetown through Boa Vista. “When he returned he presented documents that looked like it came from the Ministry of Health which said he could practice,” the woman said. She added that the only thing she asked him is why he did not put his certificates up on the wall as other doctors have done and he indicated that he wanted to have them laminated first. He bought all of his medication from Brazil and said he did this because it was easier to go to Boa Vista than to Georgetown. “A lot of people were coming to him. He saw more than ten patients a week. People needed medical care,” the woman said. The fact that he was able to “hire some of the best” from the Lethem Hospital to work with him only added credence to his practice.
A source at the hospital said that people would visit the institution and boast about the doctor whose services they rated very highly and said they were happy they no longer have to wait for hours to be treated.
‘High cholesterol’
According to a woman who was a patient, she was drawn to the man’s practice because of the low price he charged for tests. She said she also thought the man was “genuine” because he visited the Assembly of God Church in Lethem and spoke to the congregation and told them about the services he was offering. “I felt if he was not genuine he would not come to the church and do so,” the woman, who wanted to remain unnamed said.
Even as she spoke to this newspaper she questioned whether the man was really bogus and was not too keen on “anything printed against him in the newspaper.” She said she visited the man’s practice and paid her money, after which the three samples were taken and she was told she would have known the results in two weeks. Upon her return he told her that her cholesterol was high and that she had some sort of sandy sediment in her urine. “He did not show me the results but he had this piece of paper in front of him and he was ticking off things and telling me that my blood count was good and things like that…” the woman said last evening.
The woman said she had also explained to the man that she had high blood pressure and he issued medication for that and her high cholesterol. He initially told her that she would need three months worth of medication for the cost of $30,000. “Bu t I told him I did not have that money right then and I just give him two thousands dollars and he gave me some medication,” she said. She subsequently visited the man’s practice on two occasions and was told to return as he was not there. She later began hearing “rumours about him but I did not know what to believe.” When Stabroek News spoke to her she was not aware the man had returned on Wednesday and left.
‘Five days on remand’
The man’s story started to crack during one of his visits to Brazil. Word got back to people in Lethem that he had been held in connection with narcotics in the neighbouring country. It was then persons became suspicious about the man and along with his staff members they launched an investigation, which unearthed information about his drug conviction in Venezuela. They also saw a wanted bulletin issued by the authorities in St Lucia, which sought him for fraud. The authorities listed his nationality as Vincentian.
Foo said a woman, who spoke Spanish, turned up at the hotel and reported she came for the man’s documents and some clothes, which she was allowed to remove. It was later learnt that the Brazilian authorities suspected the man was trafficking in narcotics because of his frequent visits to the country. He sent for his documentation to prove that he was a practising doctor who was ferrying legal drugs for his patients across the boarder. “They saw his documentation and while they said he would not be able to practise in Brazil with that documentation, they said if the Guyana officials had no problem with him practising there then…,” the woman said. She said the man was released five days after he was in custody but was warned that he had to declare his medication and pay duties.
He returned to Lethem last Wednesday and told Foo “I am home” but she told him that she did not think he was welcome and he should check with his staff members. The man was confronted by staff members and he broke down in tears but maintained that he was a doctor.
According to Foo later that same evening the man told her he had trafficked in drugs and was running from people. “He said ‘I would tell you the truth’ and then he told me the ‘things you do in the past would follow you,” the woman said. She added that he told her he was a convicted drug trafficker who was running from people who were upset that the authorities seized the drugs he was carrying and who wanted fifty million dollar in payment. “I told him he needed to go somewhere else and speak the truth and see if someone can help him,” the woman said.
Shortly after, he told her “I am going for a walk” but then he turned around and picked up a small package he had brought with him from Brazil and said “I am going.” He has not been seen since. “We were all fooled by him, but he was really healing people. People who had pain he gave them medication and it helped them,” the woman said.