A government security contractor remained in police custody yesterday as investigators continue to probe how he came into possession of a number of laptops believed to have been stolen from the administration’s One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) programme. On Wednesday, police ranks from the city and West Demerara descended on the Laluni Street, Queenstown office/residence of Strategic Action Security Limited in search of stolen items believed to have been sold there. They reportedly stumbled on seven or eight of the laptops, several flat screen TVs, and other items
Police ranks and others loading up a Canter truck with suspected stolen items on Wednesday evening.
believed to have been stolen. The owner of the security company, Richard Kanhai, and a number of other persons were arrested and up to late yesterday were assisting with investigations, police sources said. Kaieteur News was told that several homes in the West Demerara area, including at Belle West, Canal Number Two; La Parfaite Harmonie and Belle Vue, were burglarized within the past weeks. A number of persons held named a senior official of the security company as the buyer of the stolen items, police sources said. A Canter load of items, including a rice plough and battery backup system reportedly bearing markings of the Ministry of Health were found stashed in a back building of the security firm. Yesterday, police were asking persons whose homes may have been broken into, to check with the Leonora Police Station to determine whether some of the recovered items belonged to them. Strategic Action has contracts to secure a number of government properties on the Essequibo Coast. Police sources are saying that one of the main suspects in custody, who is a principal figure in the security firm, was fingered in buying the items. Kaieteur News was told that the ranks, during the search on the premises Wednesday evening, were forced to cut locks to an upstairs apartment where the items were reportedly hidden. In August last year, almost 100 laptops belonging to the OLPF programme and kept in custody at a secured Queenstown office were stolen. Several staffers of the OLPF secretariat were grilled and even took lie detector tests. However, no one has been arrested
