Govt to get US help in visa scam probe
By Gitanjali Singh
Stabroek News
August 22, 2002
President Bharrat Jagdeo has secured a commitment from US Ambassador to Guyana, Ronald Godard for assistance in the government’s investigation into allegations made by visa-scam convict, Thomas Carroll implicating a number of locals including security officials and business persons.
The President said the US government would have to help point the Government of Guyana investigation in the direction it is required and said Godard was willing to work with the government on this issue. He said it might require a commitment for persons from the US to come to Guyana to testify before charges could be successfully brought against anyone implicated.
Jagdeo had last month announced that Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj was asked to conduct an investigation into allegations made against serving members of the Target Special Squad (TSS) who were linked to the scam engineered by the former US consular officer, Carroll. Yesterday at a press conference the President indicated that the investigation would go beyond security officials and look at all of the allegations made by Carroll.
Carroll, in his statement to the US authorities investigating his involvement in the scam, named Halim Khan, convicted on August 1 in the US, as the kingpin in the visa racket in Guyana. He also fingered a number of persons in the security services here, some of whom are retired, and a number of businessmen.
His and other evidence given before US investigators led to the prosecution creating a money laundering chart and a visa scam chart, both of which name a number of Guyanese businessmen.
The President yesterday met Godard and told reporters at the Office of the President that the ambassador was willing to work with the government to resolve the local end of the investigation. “The US government and my government are working closely on this matter. If members of the black clothes (TSS) are involved, they are not above the law,” the President asserted yesterday.
Asked why the officers of the TSS who were named and who had to go to the US to give statements/evidence were not interdicted from duty as the investigation unfolded, the President said even US authorities were of the view that a number persons fingered might be innocent of the charges and action on the government’s part would have to await the outcome of its own investigations here. He said if members of the TSS were involved, then the government would proceed to charge them.
Jagdeo noted that the original document had a long list of names but whether those persons were guilty or not the investigation would have to show.
The President also said yesterday that he had personally cleared the way for the local end of the US government investigation into Carroll. He said former US ambassador to Guyana, James Mack had approached him and asked for a specific officer of the police force (former Head of the Special Branch, Henry Chester, now retired) for the investigation and he, Jagdeo, authorised it.
“From the beginning I cleared all the blocks for the investigation to proceed,” Jagdeo said yesterday. However, he said he was not clear on the outcome of the investigation and the convictions.
Carroll was sentenced in July to 22 years in jail and Khan got three years on August 1, two of which he has already served. Khan was a witness for the US government.
Late superintendent of Police, Leon Fraser, was named as an enforcer of Carroll’s scam as well as Hargobin Mortley, another TSS agent who testified on behalf of the prosecution and served a light sentence.
It is not clear whether the government’s investigators have requested all of the court documents from the US to pursue the local investigations.