Dear Editor,
On Wednesday, December 20th, 2017, my niece was travelling to Georgetown on a minibus. She was sitting next to a bulky guy who was also a passenger. As they reached the Demerara Harbour Bridge, the man started checking some US which he had in a big white envelope. He pretended that he knew her and started a conversation asking her about her husband. She told him that he was doing fine, and then he asked her if she could change US$100 for him since he had no local currency to pay the bus conductor. He took out a US$100 note and asked her to change it. She gave him $20,000 and he gave her the US$100 which later turned out to be counterfeit. In his envelope he had about 500 of these counterfeit notes. He was smart, and was enticing people to see them.
Apparently, he had others with him on the lookout for policemen. My niece was going to Georgetown to do her Christmas shopping, not aware that this man was a scammer. As she exited the bus at the East Bank park, the man was left sitting in the bus alone with the bus driver and conductor. To me this was a planned con by the operators and the conman. My niece went into GBTI bank to change the foreign currency and she was told by the cashier that the money was counterfeit.
What I observed since the policemen are all around Georgetown patrolling, is that these crooks have moved their con business to West Demerara just before the DHB where these passengers are coming from, especially Essequibo. The Commis-sioner of Police should take note of this operation and set up his new dragnet to catch these thieves and hooligans. Passengers travelling on these buses should be warned about these scammers and not be caught by them.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
