Investigators, with the help of a telecommunications provider, were able to trace a telephone number hours after it was used to make the call demanding a ransom for Gail Perreira.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud, speaking with Stabroek News briefly yesterday, explained that after the woman’s kidnapping on Thursday night and subsequent calls made from two different numbers demanding a ransom of $20 million for her safe return, police were able to trace one of the numbers and arrested the subscriber.
The subscriber, according to Persaud, was taken into custody on Friday and has told police that he sold the phone to someone. It is illegal, Persaud noted, for a subscriber to give a mobile number to anyone who is not a minor within their care or who does not live within the same household. By selling the phone, as the man alleged he did, he breached the laws of Guyana and will be charged shortly, Persaud said.
Some of the ransom calls, Persaud explained, were also made from another number but police have been unable to trace this one up to now. One of the telephone service providers, he stated, is more responsive than the other when it comes to aiding police.
Further, when asked whether police have been able to get substantial information which may lead to the arrest of the suspect(s), Persaud would only say that Perreira has given police a statement. He also said that the woman’s story has several inconsistencies and police are still investigating.
Police, Persaud said, are not yet in a position to pronounce on whether money was the motive behind Perreira’s kidnapping. At this stage, he explained, it is known that a ransom was demanded but was reportedly never paid and police are still to determine whether there was another aim behind the kidnapping or why the perpetrators decided to release Perreira.
Several efforts made to contact Perreira and her relatives for a comment have been futile. A relative, speaking with this newspaper via telephone yesterday, said that they would rather not have contact with the media right now because they were already “dealing with enough.”
Perreira, 29, who works at the Delmur Shipping Company in Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, as an administrative assistant, was abducted around 8 pm last Thursday and a ransom demand had been made for $20 million.
The woman, police said on Friday, was reportedly abducted outside her home by three men at gunpoint. Three days after the abduction, she was released unharmed and no ransom was reportedly paid.
Police subsequently said she was “was found with relatives at their home at South Ruimveldt, Georgetown, at about 01:30 hrs.” Perreira’s face was covered after her abduction and she was taken to an unidentified location from where she was released on Sunday and found herself in the Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara area. From there she made her way to her relatives’ home at South Ruimveldt.
Prior to Perreira’s release, two men had been taken into police custody for questioning.
