Hunt on for ex-GPL employees extorting $$M from customers

Jan 14, 2016 News

The lost reduction arm of Guyana Power and Light Inc is sounding warning to the public that they should not be fooled into handing over monies to persons who make such demands. Payments should only be made at the offices of the many commercial departments.
Those departments are situated at Grove, East Bank, Vreed-en- Hoop, Mon Repos, Main Street and on Middle Street or authorized collecting entities of GPL.
This is in light of a scam that is being perpetrated by a group of former employees of GPL metering and lost reduction departments.  Recently, several persons have visited the company’s offices with video footage of persons operating under the pretext of being GPL employees. That group has been demanding and extorting payments from unsuspecting consumers.
Investigators said, “We have compiled a list of a group of seven persons who have formed an illegal parallel GPL crew and have been targeting customers and collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, illegally.”
This team has been operating in Georgetown, East Bank, East Coast and West Demerara.
Those identified as the crooks are Wentworth Cupidor a former technician who was arrested on January 11; Jefferson Lyken,  former technicians, Symbo Garraway, Kevon Goodluck, Rondel Crandon, Carl David Fraser, and Metayne Lesley Curtis. They are operating minibuses BEE 1097 and PFF 6304 and other vehicles.
The police have already been informed and are investigating.
Over a period, the group has collected monetary sums of $300,000 from a couple on the East Coast Demerara; $190,000 from a Kitty resident after demanding as much as $1M. In Diamond a business woman has also fallen prey to the gang which has collected $300,000.
As recent as Monday, that illegal team visited a business man in Herstelling and collected $200,000. They  were asked to return for $100,000. It was upon return that Cupidor was arrested while his two accomplices, Jefferson Lyken and Nigel Dundus, fled.
After Cupidor was arrested, several persons have since come forward to identify him as collecting large sums of cash from them. He remains in custody and will soon be charged for obtaining monies by false pretence with intent to defraud.
The group has also been bold enough to remove a customer’s meter in Dennis Street, Sophia, and from another customer on East Bank Demerara. The GPL investigating team is also trying to ascertain if there is an insider providing information to the illegal team resulting in them targeting specific and unsuspecting customers.
Anyone with information that may lead to the arrest of this gang is asked to contact the nearest police station or the GPL lost reduction team on 2255251, 2310507, 6001586 or 6037507.