A woman, who passed herself off as her sister-in-law to get a passport, was on Tuesday fined $40,000 for obtaining the document by making false declarations.
Tolsiedai Persaud, 46, of Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Berbice, could have gotten away with the crime if her sister-in-law, Parbattie Roopnarine, did not subsequently apply for a passport and learned that one was already issued in her name.
Police said that on August 24, 2012, at the Central Immigration Office (CIO), Persaud, a housewife, made a false declaration for the purpose of procuring a Guyanese passport.
Police prosecutor Seon Blackman told Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts that Persaud was issued with a machine readable passport in the name of Parbattie Roopnarine. Blackman also said that Persaud used the passport and travelled to Trinidad and Tobago, where she stayed for a while.
However, on January 25, 2013, the real Parbattie Roopnarine went to CIO to apply for a passport, only to learn that she had previously applied for one.
Roopnarine denied applying for a passport and an application form was then presented to her bearing her signature and a photograph of her sister-in-law, Tolsiedai Persaud.
The crime was reported to the police and a statement was obtained but Persaud was not arrested because she was in Trinidad and Tobago. However, after she returned to Guyana, she was arrested.
When Magistrate McGusty enquired of Persaud, who pleaded guilty, if she understood what was happening, she remained quiet. However, when the magistrate told her that the offence carried jail time, she immediately lost her composure and wept inconsolably. Persaud then begged Magistrate McGusty not to send her to prison.
She was subsequently fined $40,000 with an alternative of three months in jail if she could not pay the fine.
