The Ministry of Health (MOH) employee who was found in possession of illegal firearms and ammunition along with a large quantity of cash remains in police custody and is likely to be charged today.
This was confirmed by Police Commander Mahendra Siwnarine, who when contacted for an update last night told Stabroek News that the suspect is expected to appear in the Diamond Magistrate’s Court today.
The suspect was arrested after the police, who were responding to a report of larceny at the MOH Diamond, East Bank Demerara bond, carried out a search on a motorcar, PAB 3032 belonging to the employee and found one duffel bag which contained a 9MM Luger pistol without a magazine and two rounds of 9MM ammunition.
They also found one .380 pistol with a magazine containing 7 matching rounds of ammunition and a large quantity of cash. There were 20 rounds of .380 ammunition in the side pocket of the said bag.
The police said the suspect was cautioned on the offence and replied “officer leh we deal with this before it reach de station.”
He was taken to the Golden Grove Police Station Criminal Investigation Department (CID) office and while being questioned about the unlicensed firearms and ammunition, the police said he requested his bag and he withdrew and offered the police investigators $1,750,000 cash to forego the said charges.
At this point, the police said that he was told of the new offence committed – Corrupt Transaction with Agent – cautioned and replied “Well sir tek de whole bag a money all I want is me freedom”.
A total of $4,580,000 in cash was found. Of the amount, there was $5,760 in US currency.
Several other Health Ministry workers were questioned and detained over the alleged larceny of pharmaceuticals and other products.
However, Siwnarine told Stabroek News that they were subsequently released since there is insufficient evidence linking them to the crime. “At this point we are not finished with that aspect of things yet. That needs some deeper investigation,” he said.
At this point, the quantum of items stolen is unclear. However, Siwnarine said the police are hoping that this will be determined during the MOH’s routine inventory check.
“Actually it was information that this was happening but we don’t have anything solid to go by. We didn’t recover anything,” Siwnarine said.
