-on the run for drug trafficking
By Oluatoyin Alleyne
A bogus doctor, who was allowed to set up shop in Lethem for nearly two months and hire staff from the Lethem Hospital, has been outed as an alleged Venezuelan drug dealer on the run.
Juan Carlos Stapleton Rodriguez
When a man calling himself Dr Juan Carlos Stapleton Rodriguez rented rooms from the owner of a bed and breakfast hotel, he presented documents purporting to be issued by the Ministry of Health, granting him a licence to practice in Guyana as a doctor. He then opened his practice, hired the medex and two nurses from the Lethem Hospital and started seeing patients.
His story was that although he was born in Venezuela, he lived in London for a number of years and had just gone through a nasty divorce and needed a clean break from the life he once knew. However, before he fled Lethem with only a small package last Wednesday, he admitted to hotel owner Elaine Foo that he was a convicted drug dealer who is now running from his former associates who were demanding money for drugs that were seized by the authorities.
Stabroek News has since seen information that Rodriguez, who sometimes uses Stapleton as his last name and passes himself off as a professor, was held for trafficking in narcotics and sentenced in his home country, Venezuela. A wanted a bulletin was also issued for him in St Lucia as recently as February of this year after he skipped bail on fraud charges.
According to the man’s conviction sheet, seen by this newspaper, he was arrested in April 2004 at the Maiquetia Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela as he was about to board a British Airway flight. He was reportedly acting nervously and it was later discovered that he had some 80 vials of cocaine in his stomach. He pleaded guilty before Justice Dr Celestina Mendez in October 2004, and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was 25 at the time. While the conviction said the man would have been released on December 27, 2013, it is not clear how Rodriquez is now free.
Among his patients during his two-month stint as a doctor was an army lieutenant and a pastor in the area, and according to reports some patients had paid him up to $55,000 in medical bills. Persons were drawn to the doctor’s office by his promise to take samples for testing in Boa Vista, Brazil, for just $4,000. No consultation fee was required to see the doctor. He also spoke about big plans to open a pharmacy and later build a hospital in Lethem.
Contacted last evening, Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy said he knew nothing of a Dr Rodriguez operating in Lethem and would have to investigate the matter. However, the minister said his ministry does not issue licences for doctors to practice in Guyana as this is done by the Medical Council of Guyana. Efforts to contact Dr Galton Roberts, head of the Medical Council of Guyana, were futile. However, Minister Ramsammy was doubtful that the council would have granted a licence to a foreign national to open a private practice in Guyana without the person first working at a hospital under supervision. The minister explained that the individual would have had to have first been issued with an institutional licence and after about a year working under supervision would have been licensed to open private practice. “The council would first have to verify they have the prerequisite skill to practice before they are given a licence to work privately,” the minister stressed last evening.
‘Felt hurt’
Last evening Foo and other residents told Stabroek News that people in Lethem, who were obviously duped by the smoothing talking Rodriguez, were “very hurt” by the fact the doctor was a fake. They said that many persons flocked his practice since proper medical care is something almost foreign to residents. “It was a case of drowning men clutching to straws; that is how badly people need medical care in Lethem,” Foo said. She said Rodriguez left Lethem by foot on Wednesday evening, after he was confronted by his staff.
He had rented two rooms from her location; one he lived in and the other he used as an office, and most of the furniture in his office was hers but the shelves were lined with medication, all of which he left behind along with clothing that has since been taken to the Lethem hospital.
According to Foo, the man first rented a room from her, explaining that he was on holiday. But he later expressed the desire to remain in Lethem and open his private medical practice. He told the woman that he had just come from London following a nasty divorce, which saw his wife gaining custody of their two children. “He said he heard about Guyana and Lethem from another doctor who had visited and he decided to come to see the place and he said he liked it and would like to settle here,” the woman said.
After indicating he wanted to practice as a doctor in Lethem, Foo said she told him he would have to get a licence from the authorities in Georgetown before practising. He left shortly after, saying he was travelling to Georgetown through Boa Vista. “When he returned he presented documents that looked like it came from the Ministry of Health which said he could practice,” the woman said. She added that the only thing she asked him is why he did not put his certificates up on the wall as other doctors have done and he indicated that he wanted to have them laminated first. He bought all of his medication from Brazil and said he did this because it was easier to go to Boa Vista than to Georgetown. “A lot of people were coming to him. He saw more than ten patients a week. People needed medical care,” the woman said. The fact that he was able to “hire some of the best” from the Lethem Hospital to work with him only added credence to his practice.
A source at the hospital said that people would visit the institution and boast about the doctor whose services they rated very highly and said they were happy they no longer have to wait for hours to be treated.
‘High cholesterol’
According to a woman who was a patient, she was drawn to the man’s practice because of the low price he charged for tests. She said she also thought the man was “genuine” because he visited the Assembly of God Church in Lethem and spoke to the congregation and told them about the services he was offering. “I felt if he was not genuine he would not come to the church and do so,” the woman, who wanted to remain unnamed said.
Even as she spoke to this newspaper she questioned whether the man was really bogus and was not too keen on “anything printed against him in the newspaper.” She said she visited the man’s practice and paid her money, after which the three samples were taken and she was told she would have known the results in two weeks. Upon her return he told her that her cholesterol was high and that she had some sort of sandy sediment in her urine. “He did not show me the results but he had this piece of paper in front of him and he was ticking off things and telling me that my blood count was good and things like that…” the woman said last evening.
The woman said she had also explained to the man that she had high blood pressure and he issued medication for that and her high cholesterol. He initially told her that she would need three months worth of medication for the cost of $30,000. “Bu t I told him I did not have that money right then and I just give him two thousands dollars and he gave me some medication,” she said. She subsequently visited the man’s practice on two occasions and was told to return as he was not there. She later began hearing “rumours about him but I did not know what to believe.” When Stabroek News spoke to her she was not aware the man had returned on Wednesday and left.
‘Five days on remand’
The man’s story started to crack during one of his visits to Brazil. Word got back to people in Lethem that he had been held in connection with narcotics in the neighbouring country. It was then persons became suspicious about the man and along with his staff members they launched an investigation, which unearthed information about his drug conviction in Venezuela. They also saw a wanted bulletin issued by the authorities in St Lucia, which sought him for fraud. The authorities listed his nationality as Vincentian.
Foo said a woman, who spoke Spanish, turned up at the hotel and reported she came for the man’s documents and some clothes, which she was allowed to remove. It was later learnt that the Brazilian authorities suspected the man was trafficking in narcotics because of his frequent visits to the country. He sent for his documentation to prove that he was a practising doctor who was ferrying legal drugs for his patients across the boarder. “They saw his documentation and while they said he would not be able to practise in Brazil with that documentation, they said if the Guyana officials had no problem with him practising there then…,” the woman said. She said the man was released five days after he was in custody but was warned that he had to declare his medication and pay duties.
He returned to Lethem last Wednesday and told Foo “I am home” but she told him that she did not think he was welcome and he should check with his staff members. The man was confronted by staff members and he broke down in tears but maintained that he was a doctor.
According to Foo later that same evening the man told her he had trafficked in drugs and was running from people. “He said ‘I would tell you the truth’ and then he told me the ‘things you do in the past would follow you,” the woman said. She added that he told her he was a convicted drug trafficker who was running from people who were upset that the authorities seized the drugs he was carrying and who wanted fifty million dollar in payment. “I told him he needed to go somewhere else and speak the truth and see if someone can help him,” the woman said.
Shortly after, he told her “I am going for a walk” but then he turned around and picked up a small package he had brought with him from Brazil and said “I am going.” He has not been seen since. “We were all fooled by him, but he was really healing people. People who had pain he gave them medication and it helped them,” the woman said.
He could easily get hired by the government. The guy is slick like oil on water.
IDandy I said it too often that thir is a big hole in the Guyana Security System and it will continue to happen.
Everyone operating in todays world have to present two forms of ID when he or she try to engage him or or herself with the world today.
Before a Project get started the first job is to protect the project environment……for all the development taking place point me to a fully establish and secured area where you can do things successfuly after Roger Khan had spread his tentacles across the globe.
There are undesirables from all part of the world in Guyana in Guyana and nobody is doing anything to control their activies and until something reel grave happen….it only then Guyanese will bond to demand that this Government do something.
This what happens whe the Government turns its back on the poor. We will be reading more of this ….he had to have some contact to do what he did is no being slick.
Lethem is not an easy place you land to day, everybody knows tomorrow, no joke. He had his contact right their.
Trajic
Run DOC Ron
Guyanese are known the world over to be the best conmen. How come this man lasted so long before being caught out? Anyway we can’t complain too much for sombody else playing one on us.
This man was NOT guyanese. He was Venezuelan. He lasted that long because the people are desparate for medical care. They will believe anything. You cannot blame them. There is an obvious shortage of caregivers.
lol, yea boi…i hope he didn’t hurt anyone with the medication he administered.
Moderator, what the hell are you doing. Why are you not publishing my comments.Now I know Stabroek News is bias.
SN, you reported a few days ago about a Surinamese man entering Guyana illegally. Here we have a foreign man setting up shop as a doctor and performing medical procedures on patients. Who is checking on these illegals who run to Guyana to hide from the law? I guess Guyana is known all over South America and Caribbean as the perfect hiding place for criminals. Who knows how many criminals there are acting as professionals all over the country. Ooopps! someone is not doing their job. Ms. Foo should have checked with the authorities before confirming a doctor’s practice in her hotel. The Brazilians got their head on. Guyana, send some of your Ministry folks to Brazil perhaps they can teach y’all how to run an immigration facility
Millie it is not Ms Foo’s responsibility to check the credentials of the Dr. She is renting space to him not hiring him. Why didn’t someone from the hospital checked him out? There are too many holes in the systems of governance in Guyana and people take full advantage of them. Wasn’t it a few months ago someone was able to open a bogus nursing school in Georgetown?
C’mon Millie ! This is a con man . If the gov’t knew of his operation , they would have checked him out. Rather, the Minister would have jumped on him in a second. The thing is that he even began to beleive that he was a medical doctor. Guess who convinced him ?
Millie, this Gov’t of Guyana is still operating in the 20th century mode exactly where the British left them. I’ll be highly surprised if Guyana employs any kinda centralized 21st century computerized network for governmental services.
In other words, one gov’t agency does not have free computer access to gov’t data at another agency. This is no secret ’sis, because the only sophisticated modern development happening in Guyana has nothing to do with governance, that will introduce the whole country to accountability and transparency.
I will never forget many years ago I was visiting Surinam and stayed at little Guyanese own hotel….the Surinam Police their the same night cheeking in with all visitors…..
Yes Cochore, it’s the same as the US where the IRS does not know the one illegal from another but issues ITIN numbers to them.You would think it would check with Social Security and USCIS. With all the centralized computerization you lift up as the solution this still exists in the United States. How about that?
Rajijah …that trash yu writing come to New Jersey and try anything. Let me inform you the state Police had a clensing in New Jersey with SS #. The place they stated was the M.V Department.
If you don’t know call yu friends and ask them about New Jersey after 9/11 some of the major changes the whole state went through and still going through……find out what happen to all them people who had false SS# what happen to them after 9/11.
Yarrow, you must be mistaken. New Jersey is not the United States! I hope you understand the difference between state and federal laws and agencies. That might have been done in New Jersey but I am quite sure there are illgals there that have not been picked up but continue to pay their taxes each year having been given an ITIN number. My point is there is not the sharing of information between federal agencies as we may seem to think. Had there been that sharing and cross checking, ITIN numbers would not have been given to illegal aliens.
The “good doctor”,was just enjoying Guyana’s hospitality.His patients should seek him out,for refunds.
Guyana’s hospitality? I disagree with your point. Guyanese has a rotten hospitality. You only accommodate if you like the person or you could get something. But, if the person appeared so low in your eye, you just throw bad words to them. Please, don’t use hospitality in guyana. you don’t have it. you have hospital, this i agree.
Marlon Rajijah, the IRS is not there to check on illegals, they are there to collect taxes. That is why they issue ITIN numbers and not social security numbers. It is the department of homeland security and the state department whose job it is to check on illegals.
Well for long I have opined that there is serious medical malpractice and charlatanism in Guyana. I reiterate there is a private hospital which uses a pre screening HIV testing method to conclude on people’s status.This as the WHO reports is unethical because a confirmatory test has to make such conclusions.
I had written to SN and KN about this, but these papers are afraid of libel. It would make sense therefore, for a reporter to go there to enquire about what testing methods are used and how accurate they are.
Forgive Ramsammy, guys, he is swimming in deep water following the RK fiasco. Nonetheless, this is how vigilant the PPP is.
The government should be ashamed they open bridge and dont have a proper hospital
Clearly the Medical body that is tasked with the supervision of practicing Physicians in Guyana is not up to the task. A breakdown is evident in their unwillingness to sanction the Doctor who failed to provide expected care to the TORTURED child at the Leonora Police Station.
bismanttie,u seems like a very angry and wiserable woman,here in the good USA fake Doctors get caught many times working in hospitals,even preforming surgeries and it sometimes takes years before being caught.
The PPP has trained hundreds of medical doctors in Cuba since 1992 at the expense of the Guyanese tax payers.
Critics have argued that the selection process by which the students are chosen is tainted with politically nepotism. That aside, where are these students located today if not on Guyana’s shores?
Based on the number of Medical Doctors that graduated from Cuba since 1992, there should be no shortage of Doctors in Lethem or anywhere else in Guyana.
One person cannot be that bitter. You have to be for two persons!
A duckta. Quack, quack.
Man, I could go down there and be a doctor!?
A dream can be lived down there!
At least this fake doctor sees patients face and have a conversation with them, unlike the real doctor who is employed by the Guyana government(GPF)who treated the teenager who was physically abused by the police that had a bag over his face.
There are quite a few people like Rodriguez prospering under the blessing of the PPP government. These imposters are the social elite of today; they are important as they can be seen rubbing shoulders with party boys and political big wigs. Obviously, Mr Rodriguez does not have an interest in a party membership or association with the big ones who run Guyana. Too bad, but membership has its preveliges.
What about those Quacks from Cuba under the PNC government where Parcetamol and B complex tablets were given to patients for every kind of illness from headaches to lung cancer.
Like the ‘nursing school’ head who comes in a different incarnation each time. This last one might be permanent, she used it twice.
the politicians and the politics has nothing to do with this kind of case. it is the people in guyana. wherever you go,GPO, police, immigration, shops even churches, minibuses, conductors etc. the people in-charge are very sarcastic and very slow.
Marc, under this Marxist ppp administration there are hundreds of Guyanese who were trained as psysicians in the same first class NURSING SCHOOL as the Cuban doctors.As a matter of fact a new batch of students were sent to Cuba by your beloved ppp last month.PNC on the other hand awarded scholarships to include top universities in the abc countries.
FREE-DUM house can confirm the authenticity of this information or the moderator can do so for you Marc.So your glorified MARXIST cabal, whom you relish, are well proven true red blooded COMMUNISTS DICTATORS in every sense of the word.
Please also take note that every one of them refuse to be rx by the Cuban graduates but instead come here for the most common problem to surgery.Pure and simple HYPOCRISY!!! SO the pnc, Marc,had nothing to do with the imposition and perpetuation of archaic medicine within the last eighteen years!!!Think about it my friend.
GHOST RIDER, IMPOSTERS HAPPEN IN THE MOST DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. SO STOP BLAMING A PARTY FOR THIS INCIDENCE. GROW UP. STOP THIS HATE AND BLAME GAME. IMPOSTERS IS NOT PARTY CONTRIBUTORY. THE BLAME GAME WE PLAY THAT IS WHY OUR COUNTRY IS THE WAY IT IS. NOTHING IS ISOLATED THERE HAS TO ALWAYS BE A BIGGER PICTURE FOR EVERYTHING THING THAT HAPPEN. YES THE GOVT CAN DO BETTER IN BRIBERY AND CONTRACTOR’S BIDDING CONTROLLED SITUATIONS WHERE THINGS ARE BLATANTLY GOING WRONG, BUT NOT IN AN ISOLATED IMPOSTER SITUATION.
Thank you Marc! Merci Beaucoup mon ami Marc! you see I should have joined you in Cayenne, my favourite place, anyways, tell them, tell them how the PHG/GPHC under Burnham was turned into a first aid station staffed by Cubans and North Koreans, fancy stitching up a gapping gash with out anesthesia, and only when a Guyaense nurse alerted the so called North Korean doctor to that fact that he decided to annestasise the wound before stiching, tell them. They know not what they talk, and let me tell them that in a big America, they have had people set up doctor office and they turn out to be fake. I read in Time magazine of one such doctor from the Phillipines practising in Nebraska for two years until he was discovered, the best doctor in town until a patient died on his surgical table, and the US authorieties caught on to him, they had a similar case in New York where the man had no medical training and was operating a doctor office. This is nothing new at all.
Marc , GTking , et al , Cuban trained doctors are some of the best in the world . The health standards in Cuba are extremely high . The inept ppp govt is responsible for this dealer of illegal drugs functioning as a “doctor” . He choose Guyana because he knew that it is a haven for illegal drugs dealers .
Wiggins, “understandest thou what thou readest?” Your reading comprehension skill is found wanting.So, therefore, PLEASE put a sock in it snd confine your incoherent ramblings to the Barbados Nation.