Gold dealer money laundering probe widens
Ricardo Fagundes, called ‘Paper Shorts’, a former employee of embattled gold dealer, Saddiqi ‘Bobby’ Rasul, was re-arrested yesterday by the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) as that entity continues to probe what appears to be a massive money laundering scheme.
SOCU is looking at the relationship between the gold dealer, his friends and associates and an apparent collusion between his two gold mining operations R Mining Inc and SSS Mining and the Guyana Gold Board (GGB). Fagundes was apparently picked up by SOCU agents at the same 25 Sandy Babb Street, Kitty, address that was raided where a number of items were seized including a Jet Ski, three luxury motorbikes, cell phones and a large cache of ammunition. A SOCU official confirmed that Fagundes was indeed arrested by that unit and is being questioned in a ‘major’ money laundering probe. Kaieteur News has learnt that Fagundes was re-arrested after it was discovered that he cashed some of the cheques in the $956M fraud at the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) Bartica branch. At the time when SOCU raided the Sandy Babb Street address Fagundes’s sister, Tessa Fagundes, disassociated her sibling from the embattled gold dealer. Referring to SOCU’s latest visit on that raid the woman said that it was the third visit that the unit had made to her brother’s address.
The woman said that her sibling no longer works with ‘Bobby’ and that the constant visits by SOCU have been frustrating. That assertion by the man’s sister seemingly contradicts what is currently unfolding now with Rasul. In fact the male Fagundes seems to have been integrally involved in Rasul’s inner circle. Rasul found himself in hot water after allegedly collecting more than $956M at the Bartica, Region Seven branch of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) based on a number of cheques he deposited. The cheques later bounced. It is protocol that banks would normally hold other banks’ cheques until they are cleared, before making payments against them. However, it appears as though this procedure was flouted by GBTI officials, one bank official has since been sacked.
(Kaieteurnews.com)