Several retired police officers along with other members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) were today charged in relation to a multimillion-dollar fraud at the entity.
They made their first court appearance at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.
It is alleged that Paul Slowe, Clinton Conway, Claude Whittaker, George Fraser, Mark Gilbert, Royston Andries-Junor, Marcelene Washington, Michael Sutton and Marion Kellman, between March 1, 2019, and July 7, 2020, conspired together to defraud the GPF of $10M.
Reports are that money was paid to revise the entire Police Force’s Standing Orders, but Slowe and the others have so far failed to present the Force with a completed revised Standing Order.
The raft of Police Force’s Standing Orders comprises of 104 Standing Orders but these were already revised at the time that the men implicated in the fraud reportedly undertook to conduct a revision.
“The entire 104 Standing Orders of the Guyana Police Force were completely revised by Civilian Police Analysts that work at the Strategic Planning Unit of the Guyana Police Force between July 2018 and March 2019. However, Slowe and others were paid to do the same revision when it was already done,” a missive from the Force stated.
Slowe and Washington were charged in absentia.
The other men were granted bail in the sum of $100,000 each.
Meanwhile, Sutton was charged separately for falsely signing seven payment vouchers as the accounting officer, which he was not authorised to do, enabling Paul Slowe, Clinin Conway, Claude Whittaker, George Fraser and Mark Gilbert to be paid a total of $1,776,000.
On this charge, he was granted $100,000 bail.
The fraud was unearthed during a probe conducted by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU).
The matter has been adjourned to June 3.
