A woman is now set to face just over a dozen charges after she allegedly scammed groups of men in Berbice by pretending to facilitate accredited training courses for would-be seafarers.
Several Berbice men who each paid $160,000 to undertake a Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) course for seafarers made reports to the police after unsuccessful attempts to obtain their certification over the past year.
Stabroek News contacted the woman in charge of the programme yesterday. However, she asked to return the call to Stabroek News “in a couple of minutes” but failed to do so. After this, Stabroek News was unable to get on to her.
A number of the men told Stabroek News yesterday that at this point they only want a refund of their money due to what they have learnt about the woman spearheading the course.
Commander of Region Six Jairam Ramlakhan yesterday confirmed that the police had launched an investigation and the woman is expected to appear today at a magistrate’s court in Berbice, where it is expected that 17 charges of obtaining by false pretense will be read against her.
This newspaper was told of at least five batches, with the first comprising 10 persons, the second with 13 persons, the third with 9 persons, the fourth with 8 persons, and the fifth with 16 persons.
Odwin Sinclair, 34, of Kortberaad Village, East Bank Berbice, who was part of the fourth batch to undertake the course, said that he learned of it via an advertisement on a local television station. “So I went to her home to enquire about the courses and there she told me that she is a training and recruiting agent for ExxonMobil and the two courses that she was offering at the time was STCW and lifting and banksman courses… $160,000 for the STCW and $100,000 for the lifting and banksman course,” Sinclair noted.
He said he started the STCW course on January 27 and completed it seven days later. “We wrote two exams and she said six weeks after we would be receiving our certificates”.
However, after six weeks Sinclair was told that the certificates had not yet arrived. “She said that it’s on its way but with that information I went to [the] Transport and Harbours [Department] to find out how long it would take for them to issue me a discharge book – that’s a document to sail on receiving this STCW certificate from her,” he said, while adding that to his surprise he was told there that there was only one accredited school in Guyana for seamen’s affairs and it is in Georgetown.
Sinclair said, the same day he then ventured to the New Amsterdam Police Station to file a report and he met several others of his batch mates.
This newspaper was told that those who were in previous batches received some certificates from the woman but encountered issues when they attempted to acquire a discharge book to sail.
According to Sinclair, he was under the impression that after he completed the course and received his certificate he would be assisted in gaining employment with an oil company.
According to the men, the woman told them that the company which issues the certification had closed down and that she had secured certificates from another company. “We did the course January 27, [2020] and then she tried to give us a next certificate with dates 11 of August, 2020,” he noted, while adding that the substitute certificates also indicated that the course was done online. “We haven’t done any online classes,” he noted.
Emailed
The men then made direct contact with the company and they learnt that it had not closed.
The men said that they also emailed the certificates which were sent by the woman “and the people again responded by saying the certificate that we showed to them is fake and invalid, so with that we went back to the station, showing them the receipts and the emails and everything.”
Meanwhile, Sinclair said the police told him to return to her office and confirm that he wanted his refund and not any certificate. He did so and found her “keeping classes there again.”
Carlos Reed, 31, of Sandvoort Village, West Canje, Berbice, who also paid $160,000 to do the STCW course, decided to go to the police because the woman “kept dodging us and she wasn’t always answering her phone and we would only hear lame excuses.”
According to Reed, she had told him that the original certificate would come from Honduras “and she tried to give us a different certificate so we did a background check and they sent us an email that the certificate is not valid, it is fake and when we tell her that she send us a voice note stating that the certificate is legit and is the highest certificate than the one that we need and [that] the one we need is not coming anymore.”
However, Reed noted that a friend of his went about one month ago to the authorised location in Georgetown and completed the course and received the same certificate that the woman claimed was no longer coming. “I don’t know if somebody in authority can help us,” he added.
Reed, a father of two, said, that he is presently unemployed and decided to apply to companies, “but I cannot get the job because I cannot get the certificate. I apply and send my receipts in to show I did the course and I got three calls from the companies but I cannot get the job.”
Gary Darlington, who also paid $160,000, received a refund of $70,000 after he continued to question the woman. Darlington yesterday said, that he then went to Georgetown in September and completed the same course “and received my certificate and eight days after the certificate. I got my discharge book and I paid $155,000 there.”
Additionally, he pointed out that the things that were taught in Berbice were different from what he learned in Georgetown. “When you do an interview and certain question pop to you, you cannot answer because you did not do certain things at the institute that she is teaching at but in Georgetown they cover each and every base of the programme,” he said.
