GNBS employees held with marked

money in sting operation

Three employees of the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) were arrested yesterday after they were found in possession a large quantity of cash after they had fleeced a city businessman.
The three suspects were nabbed yesterday following a carefully planned sting operation, which was in response to a scheme in which they extracted huge amounts of cash from gullible fuel truck owners.
Kaieteur News understands that the three employees ran a scheme in which they demand $300,000 from fuel truck owners to certify their vehicles for the transport of fuel. The licences cost $52,000 each.
According to reports, the businessman, who operates a fuel station, received a complaint from a fellow fuel dealer that the employees were making exorbitant demands to process the licences.
He decided to check for himself and he was soon surprised to find out that what was reported to him was indeed happening; the employees demanded $300,000.
He went along with the demand, but little did the employees know he had his own plan.
In collaboration with the police he placed secret marks on several currency notes, which he used to pay the unsuspecting employees.
Minutes after they had collected the money, detectives from the police Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters moved in, before the employees could have stashed their ill-gotten gains.
When they were searched, the notes with the secret marks were found on them.
“This scheme was large. Think about all the fuel tankers in this country having to go through them. They do about one truck per day,” one fuel truck owner told this newspaper. He praised his colleague for using his initiative to expose the scheme and to initiate the process to have the perpetrators face the full force of the law.
“They picked on the wrong man,” he said, while lauding the officers and ranks of the CID.
This newspaper understands that the three employees could be placed before the court today.