As the police probe into the theft of a quantity of pharmaceutical products and other medical supplies from the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) drugs bond at Diamond, East Bank Demerara (EBD) continues, the prime suspect is scheduled to appear in court today.
This was confirmed by Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum who said that the storage attendant will be charged with unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition.
The prime suspect has also been fingered in the larceny which is still being investigated. Apart from him, a doctor and retired Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer who were arrested on Wednesday remained in police custody up to last night.
One of the suspects is said to be cooperating with investigators and has since reportedly admitted that theft of drugs from the Ministry’s EBD bond has been ongoing for a number of years now.
Police on Monday afternoon arrested the storage attendant after he was found in possession of illegal firearms and ammunition along with a large quantity of cash. It is believed that he along with others stole and sold a quantity of pharmaceutical products and other medical supplies from the Ministry’s EBD bond.
The storage attendant was arrested after the police, who were responding to a report of larceny at the MOH bond, carried out a search on a motorcar, PAB 3032 belonging to the employee and found one duffel bag which contained a 9MM Luger pistol without a magazine and two rounds of 9MM ammunition.
They also found one .380 pistol with a magazine containing seven matching rounds of ammunition and a large quantity of cash. There were 20 rounds of .380 ammunition in the side pocket of the said bag.
The police said the prime suspect was cautioned on the offence and replied “officer leh we deal with this before it reach de station.”
He was taken to the Golden Grove Police Station Criminal Investigation Department (CID) office and while being questioned about the unlicensed firearms and ammunition, the police said he requested his bag and he withdrew and offered the police investigators $1,750,000 cash to forego the said charges.
At this point, the police said that he was told of the new offence committed – Corrupt Transaction with Agent – cautioned and replied “Well sir tek de whole bag a money all I want is me freedom”.
A total of $4,580,000 in cash was found. Of the amount, there was $5,760 in US currency.
A number of other Health Ministry workers were questioned and detained over the alleged larceny but were later released due to insufficient evidence.
Police Commander of Region 4B, Mahendra Siwnarine had told Stabroek News that at this point the quantum of items stolen is unclear. However, Siwnarine said the police are hoping that this will be determined during the MOH’s routine inventory check.
“Actually it was information that this was happening but we don’t have anything solid to go by. We didn’t recover anything,” Siwnarine had said.
