A traumatized mining employee yesterday detailed how he was handcuffed and abducted from behind Giftland Mall by three men pretending to be police officers, taken to his home and forced to hand over $9.5 million, the proceeds from a small sand truck business he operates.
Kevin Fiedtkou, a 31-year-old Operations Supervisor attached to Aurora Gold Mining Inc, yesterday told Stabroek News that the men returned to his home the following day, demanding more money but he had nothing else to give.
It was after sometime that he decided to report the matter to the police.
Police yesterday issued a wanted bulletin for one of the trio, who they said had pretended to be members of the Special Organized Crime Unit when they abducted Fiedtkou.
According to the police, 29-year-old Okeemo Arak Brummell of Bel Air Springs was identified from CCTV cameras as one of the men who abducted Fiedtkou on October 10th.
According to the statement from the police, Fiedtkou reported that around 12:30 hrs on the said date, three men held him against his will at the Giftland Mall compound. They then took him to his home at Providence, East Bank Demerara where he handed over $9,500,000.
Fiedtkou yesterday said the men also removed his Network Video Recording (NVY).
The man told Stabroek News that he was on his way to wash his pickup when he was abducted by the trio. He said the men claimed to be police and he asked for their identification but none was provided.
He added, “We all know this is Guyana and police do abuse their authority so having them do this wasn’t surprising to me. However I didn’t want to resist police and then I didn’t do anything wrong. So if they were police then I didn’t have anything to be afraid of. However, after handcuffing me, they then took me to my residence demanding money. During this ordeal, I noticed two of them had guns so I tried to cooperate so as to preserve my life and the life of my family,” the man said.
Fiedtkou further related that he has a small sand truck business which generates a cash flow for him and at the time, he had $9.5 million at home, which the men took along with his NVR. The following day, he said, the same men revisited in a police car and demanded more money which he did not have. He said he eventually gave the men whatever loose cash he had and they left his home. Fiedtkou said that after some careful consideration about which station to report the matter to, he proceeded to do that.
He added, “I was traumatized and so was my family; as well as confused because police are meant to protect us. And, I honestly didn’t know what to do because if I had shown up at a station and the said perpetrators was present, who knows what they could have done. Who knows what they had planned for me that day. I am very much afraid and so is my family.”
