With a Guyana Police Force audit of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) uncovering evidence of fraud, the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) yesterday called for the unit to be shut down and for an independent forensic audit to be conducted towards prosecuting all personnel implicated in wrongdoing.
The call was made in a statement issued yesterday in reaction to a report in the Stabroek News on the findings of the audit, which sources told this newspaper found the doctoring of records and recommended the immediate transfer of personnel and a fraud investigation of several of the discrepancies.
The PPP said the findings have vindicated the concerns repeatedly expressed by the party over the past four years about the operations of the unit, which it argued has deviated from its original mandate of combatting organised crimes and money laundering and has instead been reduced to a rogue unit carrying out political directions to witch-hunt PPP leaders and shake down the business community under the pretext of crime fighting.
