Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 17, 2009 News
A 49-year-old Plaisance man was in police custody last night for allegedly fleecing an Alberttown businesswoman by pretending he was renting her vehicles to Caricom officials. The alleged culprit reportedly presented forged documents with Caricom letterheads while conducting his scam, which ended yesterday after the businesswoman laid a trap which led to his arrest.
By then, businesswoman Sabrina Mc Allister had already lost more than $360,000 and had rented out two valuable vehicles to the suspect, without receiving any payment in return.
Mc Allister believes that the fraudster had intended to sell her vehicles.
Mc Allister, who runs Road-Wise Taxi Service, told Kaieteur News that she had known the suspect for some 24 years, but was unaware of his criminal traits.
The businesswoman’s troubles began four months ago when the suspect visited her and said that things were “bad” with him.
She decided to give him one of her taxis to drive.
But then the alleged fraudster convinced Mc Allister that he could arrange for Caricom officials to rent two of her vehicles. One of the vehicles was an SUV.
She said he even presented her with documents with Caricom letterheads, purportedly signed by Caricom officials to back his claim.
One of the documents indicated that Mc Allister would receive $60,000 a day for rental of her SUV for three years. It also stated that all maintenance would be done by Caricom and that the vehicle “would be solely driven by Caricom personnel and foreign dignitaries.”
Mc Allister supplied fuel for the vehicles. She also gave the con-man 100 pounds of chicken which the man claimed was to be delivered “to the Caricom snackette.”
The businesswoman said that the man even told her to open a bank account into which the Caricom payments would be deposited.
But Mc Allister eventually became suspicious when no money was deposited into the account. “I was not paid. He would say ‘there’s an error.’
To relieve her fears, the scam artist presented her with another ‘Caricom document’. This one, dated October 6, 2009, stated that Mc Allister would receive a cheque for $5.6M on Friday, October 9, 2009, “due to the overdue delay in payments to you from 6th July to 6th August and 6th August to 6th September.”
Mc Allister said that the scam eventually fell through on Wednesday, when the fraudster told her that they had to meet an official from the Minister of Finance in relation to their arrangement with Caricom.
The businesswoman went along with the arrangement, but she immediately became suspicious when she was asked to meet the ‘Ministry of Finance official’ and the suspect in the Ministry compound, rather than in an office. Yesterday, a suspicious Mc Allister took the documents she had been given to the Caricom Secretariat. An official confirmed that they were all forgeries.
She immediately informed her husband and the police. They eventually tracked the fraudster to a Lamaha Street beer garden where he was arrested.
He was still in custody at press time.
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