GRA $300M fraud staffer nabbed by US

police

A former employee of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) who fled after an investigation was launched back in 2009 following the discovery of a massive fraud, has been arrested by US police.
Gregory Alistair Ewan Barnes, 32, was on Interpol’s wanted list for embezzlement.
A Buffalo News online report yesterday said that Cheektowaga police pulled over a four-door sedan on Genesee Street Monday evening for an expired inspection and illegal tinted windows. Cheektowaga is part of the State of New York.
It turned out that the driver, Barnes of George Urban Blvd. in Cheektowaga was wanted by Interpol, police said yesterday.
A computer check revealed there was an active warrant through Interpol on Barnes who was suspected of embezzling somewhere between $6M and $300M (US$29,000- US$1.4M) from GRA.
Barnes was stopped about 18:30hrs while driving a gold-colored Infiniti.
The warrant was confirmed through U.S. National Central Bureau, a division of Interpol U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C., Cheektowaga police said.
Barnes was turned over to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol for a visa violation and may be deported to Guyana.
Kaieteur News had reported that in 2009, Barnes fled Guyana after he was reportedly being investigated for allegedly defrauding GRA of over $300M.
Local investigators, who badly wanted to get their hands on him, turned to Interpol for help and posted a wanted bulletin.
Investigators believed back then that Barnes conspired with other staffers, including an IT official of GRA, to delete evidence of taxes and duties paid by businesses to the agency from the main database.
However, the fraud unraveled after the IT employee failed to delete a payment made. The cashier was reportedly questioned for two days by GRA before he fled the country.
Another staffer, Garfield Pearson of South Ruimveldt Park, was charged with four counts of embezzlement. It was alleged that in October 2009, at the GRA Head Office, located then on Main Street, he stole over $6M from his employer, the GRA. Pearson was Systems Engineer at the time and was posted in the Information Technology department, the Prosecution said. Barnes had reportedly fled Guyana in the midst of the investigations.
The police contended in the charges against Pearson and Barnes that between January 2008 and October 2009, the latter was employed as cashier. It was alleged that the two conspired to steal over $3M paid by businesses for containers by deleting records of the transactions on the GRA system.
Barnes was allegedly caught with $1M cash in his possession, according to Prosecutors.
GRA sources, back in 2009, said that the scheme was much larger and in total up to $300M may have been lost in revenues by GRA and by extension, the state.
GRA has reportedly tightened up its systems considerably.