A Canefield, East Canje Berbice woman was today placed on $680,000 bail after she was charged with seventeen counts of obtaining by false pretense following reports to the police over an alleged bogus seaman’s training course.
Simone Fortune, General Secretary of the Guyana Seafarers and General Workers Union (GS&GWU) appeared at the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate Renita Singh, who read the seventeen years charges to her.
The charges alleged that Fortune between January 17, 2020 and January 20, 2020, at Pitt Street, New Amsterdam, with intent to defraud obtained the sum of $160,000 by falsely pretending that she was in a position to conduct training and issue seafarers’ certificates.
Fortune, who was represented by attorney at law, Ryan Crawford, pleaded not guilty to each charge.
She was placed on $40,000 bail on each charge, a total of $680,000 bail. She was also ordered to lodge her passport and report to the New Amsterdam Police Station every Friday.
She will return to court on January 26.
The seventeen persons lodged reports at the New Amsterdam Police Station after they each allegedly paid $160,000 to Fortune to undertake a Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) course for seafarers and their attempts to obtain their certification over the past year were unsuccessful.
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 (an oil company) 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 had said that 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 that there was only one accredited school in Guyana for seamen’s training and it is in Georgetown.
Sinclair said on the same day he 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 and the others were under the impression that after he completed the course and received his certificate they would be assisted in gaining employment with an oil company.
