A prominent Gold Dealer was today placed on $3 million bail after he was charged with obtaining under false pretense, the sum of $956 Million from the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI).
34-Year-Old Sadik Rasul,the owner of SSS Mineral Gold Company, pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were read against him in Court on Monday morning. SSS Mineral Gold is one of the large gold trading companies in the country.
The Court was told that on the 21st March at GBTI Bartica’s Branch, he presented three cheques to the bank in the sums of $298 million ,$138 million and $45 million,while on the 22nd he also represented 3 additional Cheques in the sums of $ 290 million,$96 million and $89 million claiming that he had the said amount of Cash in his Citizens Bank Account .
After releasing the money, the bank then made checks and found that the defendant had no such cash in his account at Citizens Bank. Usually, banks would have to clarify the availability of the money before honouring cheques.
Prosecutor Arvin Moore objected to bail and told the Court that the Bank Manager,who followed through with the request did not follow normal protocol.
He also said four persons were paid from the cash collected but are yet to be located.
In addition, the Prosecutor told the court that if released the defendant could tamper with the witnesses and another charge of a $5 M fraud currently is being investigated at the moment.
The Defendant’s Attorney, Sandil Kissoon, told the court that the process of obtaining the sum of money was legal and it was on the part of the Banks negligence,when it did not check the account of the defendant before releasing the money.
He then continued in his statement to say that at the time the cheques were issued, the account of the defendant was closed by Citizens Bank.
Bail was then granted in the sum of $500,000 for each Cheque that the defendant issued, and that came up to a total of $3 million for the six cheques.
He will make his next court appearance on the 21st April, 2017.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login