The Guyana Police Force has sought the assistance of Interpol in their effort to apprehend one of the persons suspected of embezzling some $6M from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).
According to the Interpol website, Guyana has sought its assistance in arresting Gregory Alistair Ewan Barnes who is wanted for fraud.
In December last when Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson had granted 30-year-old Garfield Pearson of Lot 3702 Buttercup Place, South Ruimveldt Park $1M bail in connection with the fraud, Prosecutor Stephen Telford had told the court that Barnes had fled the jurisdiction while the police were still investigating the matter.
Pearson’s lawyer, Ronald Burch-Smith, who had said his client was a first year Computer Science student at the University of Guyana and that he is an expectant father, argued that the young man worked as the Systems Engineer at GRA and had been employed there since 1997 in the Information Technology department.
He had argued that the police had based the matter on the friendship that Pearson and Barnes shared and that his client should not have to face the consequences for an offence committed by another.
He had noted that his client worked at the GRA Charlotte Street branch while Barnes worked at the Main Street branch and that over 100 persons had access to the main computer system in the company.
However, according to the prosecutor, between January 2008 and October last year, Barnes had been employed as a cashier and Pearson as a systems engineer at GRA. He had said that both men had received in excess of $3 million from taxpayers and had issued receipts to these persons.
He said that before balancing off the accounts at the end of the day Pearson had deleted the transactions from the computer system but had replaced them to facilitate the removal of goods and after this was done had again removed the transaction from the computer system.
The prosecutor said that on October 22 this year, Barnes was caught with over $1 million in his possession and had later contacted Pearson who replaced the transaction in the computer system. The prosecutor went on to say that a forensic auditor was retained by the company who showed that the duo acted together to commit the fraud.
Meanwhile, another Guyanese is being sought by Interpol but this time Canada has issued the bulletin.
Thirty-one-year-old Neyon Daneyon Jemmott is listed as being wanted for the crime against life and health.
According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) website Jemmott is wanted for first degree murder and he is considered to be armed and dangerous.
The RCMP said that September 9th, 2005, police were called to a scene where a body had been discovered in the stairwell covered in blood and the cause of death was determined to be a “gunshot wound to the neck”.
