A couple jointly charged with being involved in a visa scam from which they obtained $4.9M from several persons, made their second court appearance yesterday at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court where two other charges were read to them.

Tulsie Persaud

Tulsie Persaud, 30, of Lot 4 Cemetery Road, Triumph Village and Simone King, 29, of Phase Two Good Hope, East Coast Demerara were further remanded to prison and are expected to make another court appearance on February 19.

They were read yesterday four summary charges of obtaining money by false pretence to which they entered not guilty pleas.

Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson presided over the matter.

The couple denied that between May 8 and 22 last year, with intent to defraud, they obtained $920,000 from Seeram under the pretext that they were in the position to obtain a genuine US visa for Nishan Gary Kam, knowing same to be false.

The couple also denied that they obtained $1.2M from Angela Chung between November 24 and December 4 last year, $2M from Rajdey Geetlall on May 22 and $779,000 from Vishwanti Sookdeo between February 20 and March 12 last year under the pretext that they were in the position to obtain genuine US visas for them.

Simone King

Sookdeo, who was also present in court, told the magistrate that she had also given two passports to the couple, one for Imram Mohamed and the other for Hamer Mohamed so that she could obtain visas for them.

Geetlall, who was also present yesterday, told the court that she had given over the money to the couple because she thought it was legitimate business since they assured her that she will still have to pass through the US embassy before obtaining the visa.

However, the couple’s lawyer, James Bond, applied for reasonable bail for them on the grounds that his clients had no intention to defraud any of the Virtual Complainants (VCs) but they had given his clients loans that they both had not fully repaid.

He said that Sookdeo had sued his clients for a sum of money that she had loaned them and she had won the case against them in the High Court. He stated that he was baffled as to why she was now alleging that they tried to defraud her of monies for visas.

Bond then told the court that his clients were willing to make restitution to all the VCs but when the monies were not forthcoming, the magistrate ordered that the couple be remanded to prison.