(www.inewsguyana.com) – Several business persons have been victims of a group issuing bogus Republic Bank cheques, a reliable source in Berbice confirmed late Saturday.
According to the source, several Berbice businesses were “caught off-guard” and sold items to the suspected fraudster, only to turn up at the bank and were told ” these cheques were not issued by us, these people who signed these cheques are not members of staff of Republic Bank”.
iNews was told that this racket has been ongoing for sometime now, but the bank has not made it public.
” We received a number of these cheques over the past few weeks here (in Berbice), but I don’t think anyone has said anything about it so far, I am not sure if the police were informed” a bank source commented.
Last week, an East Coast Demerara woman narrowly escaped being a victim of the fraudsters, luckily for her initiative.
The woman told iNews that she had an advertisement in the newspaper about an item she was selling and received a phone call from a man who identified himself and said he was living on the East Bank of Demerara.
” This man called me and said his name is (name withheld for the safety of this woman), he told me he lives at (address withheld) and is interested in buying this item from me. Last Monday, he called me to say he’s coming down to get a manager’s cheque and will come for the item, that was about 8am or so, about 12:30 he called me back to say he’s sending someone to drop the cheque and collect the item about 1:30, he said the person is coming from Berbice. But about 4:30 a taxi showed up and the guy had the cheque, he handed it to me, I then called Republic Bank Georgetown, to confirm if the cheque was good but was told those who signed were never heard of in Republic Bank,” the woman related.
She said when she confronted the person who brought the cheque, the man collected the cheque from her and left.
Not satisfied, the woman called Republic Bank Rose Hall and was told by a staff to “hold the person who brought the cheque and call the police”, however the man had already left.
Another businesswoman reportedly handed over a large quantity of lumber, worth millions to a man who also issued her with one of the bogus cheques.
