On Thursday, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Calvin Brutus appeared in court with three others to face a series of charges and was placed on $9.1m bail, according to the GPF.
He was charged with two others with two counts of conspiracy to commit a felony – obtaining by false pretence. In a separate charge, Adonika Aulder, the wife of Mr Brutus was made to answer to two counts of money laundering. They were not required to plead and were placed on $1,000,000 bail each.
Additionally, Mr Brutus was then charged with 21 counts of liability of official, under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA). He was not required to plead to the charges.
The case was adjourned to the 18th November 2024 for report and Mr Brutus has to return to court later to hear the remainder of charges. The liability of official provision under the FMAA has not apparently been used before.
Section 85 of the FMAA describes this liability as follows: An official who –
falsifies any account, statement, receipt or other record issued or kept for the purposes of this Act, the Regulations, the Finance Circulars or any other instrument made under this Act;
conspires or colludes with any other person to defraud the State or make opportunity for any person to defraud the State; or
knowingly permits any other person to contravene any provision of this Act,
is guilty of an indictable offence and liable on conviction to a fine of two million dollars and to imprisonment for three years.
Mr Brutus does face serious charges. Some of those read on Thursday in court include that Mr Brutus issued two cheques for $6 million and $7 million from the Guyana Police Force to himself.
It was also alleged that on November 16, 2023, at the GPF headquarters, he instructed Woman Inspector Collins from the Police Consumers Co-op Society to prepare a cheque in his name for $20 million. The money was supposed to be used to purchase items for the GPF but they were never purchased and instead, it was allegedly deposited into Mr Brutus’ personal account.
Thirdly, it is alleged that on June 31, at GPF headquarters, he instructed another police officer to hand in 221 payment vouchers, which he paid to his wife.
It is further alleged that on November 28 and 29, 2023, at GPF Headquarters, he told Women Inspector Collins from the Police Consumers Coop Society to prepare cheques in his name worth $60 million belonging to Police Consumers Co-op Society. The money was supposed to be used for repairs and maintenance of the same Police Consumers Co-op Society but instead Mr Brutus allegedly collected the money and used it for his own purposes.
Mr Brutus was also charged with larceny. It is alleged that he used a police officer to steal $60 million and $20 million from GPF on different intervals which relates to the two cheques prepared by Woman Inspector Collins.
Mr Brutus also faces two charges related to money laundering. It is alleged that he paid $85 million for a property at 5th Street, Alberttown in Georgetown, with monies from the proceeds of crime.
Secondly, it is alleged that Mr Brutus paid $20 million for a property at Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara. This money was taken directly or indirectly from crime.
Before his downfall, Mr Brutus was on a trajectory towards the top of the force. Given the gravity of the charges against him two things are evident. The battered credibility of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has been further diminished. The charges against Mr Brutus are a mortal blow to the force and given its weak leadership and the clear intent of the government to make the force subservient and pliable, a dangerous juncture has been reached. This force needs immediate rescuing and the restoration of a modicum of respectability. This can only be achieved by the temporary recruitment of external leadership. This is something that has been argued for by this newspaper extending all the way back to the 1993 murder of Monica Reece. PPP/C governments have never heeded this necessity as they couldn’t envisage losing control of the police force.
The government may have little choice now. With the vast expansion of the economy, billions of US$ in oil revenues pouring into the country, increasing external and inward investment and the growing vigilance around the AML/CFT framework, to have an Assistant Commissioner of Police facing serious money-laundering charges is to make a mockery of the functioning and authority of the force. How does it begin to recover from this without radical changes?
The second point that should be made about Mr Brutus’ charges is that these did not occur overnight or in a vacuum. Given the scale of the charges against him – many of which are still to be read – various levels of the force had to have been complicit or at least compromised. That these alleged crimes could have occurred without being detected earlier speaks poorly of the leadership of the force and internal accountability systems. It is unclear what has driven the charges at this point but it is evident that due diligence and adherence to financial accountability laws were absent.
The manoeuvring is not over. A day after his charges, Mr Brutus’ lawyers suddenly withdrew the action he had brought against the Police Commissioner, Attorney General, the Minister of Home Affairs and others. The claims made and reliefs sought by Mr Brutus in this action were quite serious. Did he only bring this action in an attempt to stave off charges? Has he now abandoned the action so he can concentrate on the major defence he now has to mount in relation to the dozens of charges filed against him? Or is there even more in the mortar than the pestle?
These charges against Mr Brutus raise major questions about financial probity in the upper echelons of the police force and the answers lie in radical action to cauterise what ails it.
