Latest update March 28th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 04, 2020 Consumer Concerns, News
CONSUMER CONCERNS:
By Pat Dial
Kaieteur News – Some time ago, this column had an offering on foreign frauds enmeshing and robbing Guyanese of millions of dollars. Many of these frauds originated in Nigeria. Now that Guyana has become an oil country, fraudsters from all parts of the world are making their way here as they have done in the small countries with oil economies.
Recently, a major, alleged Ponzi Scheme was uncovered to the great surprise of the whole nation. The alleged scheme had been operating here from 2018 but it is only in 2019 that the Guyana Securities Commission (GSC) became aware of its activities. The Commission immediately issued newspaper advertisements warning the public against the scheme and pointed out that it infringed several Fiscal Regulatory Laws including the Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism Act and failure to provide information required by the GSC under the Securities Industry Act of 1998. Further, it had been operating without a licence from the GSC and when it did apply for a licence on August 5th, 2020, that application was not granted.
When the Cuban manager of the scheme had applied for Guyanese naturalization, the GSC informed the Minister of Citizenship and the Minister of Home Affairs of the applicant’s involvement in the alleged Ponzi scheme. The Cuban manager was, however, granted Guyanese nationality and no police inquiry was undertaken.
It was only recently that a high-level team consisting of the Attorney General, the Commissioner of Police, the Governor of the Central Bank, Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit and Head of the Guyana Securities Council got involved and the two managers of the scheme were taken into custody and charged.
Some 17,000 persons were enmeshed in the scheme and it is so far estimated that US $30M had been collected. The courts will eventually resolve the matter but many persons would be losing large sums of money.
Dubai, a small oil-producing country, has attracted fraudsters from all over the world.
Recently, the BBC reported that a gang of a dozen Nigerians fraudsters were arrested by the Dubai police, the two most prominent being Olalekan Jacob Ponle known by his Instagram name of “mrwoodberry” and Ramon Olorunwa Abbas known to his 2.4 million Instagram followers as”hushpuppi”.
The Dubai police have recovered US $40M in cash; 13 luxury cars worth US$6.8M; 21 computers; 47 smart phones and the addresses of nearly two million alleged victims. The Dubai experience has been replicating itself in several other countries. The types of fraud are more ingenious using modern IT technology. The law enforcing bodies at all levels will have to be made aware of the problem and the most effective training should be sourced to deal with this novel type of criminality.
The Police Force should urgently begin work on establishing a specialist unit to deal with such genre of criminality.
A decade ago, the foreign frauds were simpler and the two most known here were sweepstakes fraud and offers to place large sums of money in the victim’s foreign bank accounts. The sweepstakes fraud was simply an offer of buying a share in the world’s richest lotteries such the El Gordo of Spain. The fraudster researched into the name, address and other personal information of prospective victim.
He/she would be written a very convincing letter and once he/she sends the fraudster money to purchase the first share, the victim will continue to do so until he realises his remittances have been embezzled.
The other fraud, mostly emanating from Nigeria, was the prospective victim receiving a well-written letter saying that the writer has access to millions of dollars of Government funds which had been abandoned which he will send to the victim’s foreign bank account. The victim will receive 40% of the money. The fraudster’s aim was to secure the victim’s bank account number and details. Several Guyanese were robbed by these and other frauds.
How could Guyana protect itself against these frauds? In the first place, the Citizenship and Immigration Laws need to be urgently modernized or the country will find itself with a plethora of criminals and unwanted residents.
In the second place, the Guyana Police Force must establish a specialist unit, the personnel of which should be well trained. Citizens should also protect themselves by resisting the temptation of believing that one could get something for nothing or the temptation of easy money. The fraudster assumes that the victim is naturally greedy and is naive or stupid; the citizen must prove the fraudster wrong.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
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