The Board of Directors for the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) confirmed earlier today that a fraud was perpetrated at a Commercial Bank which resulted in close to $30M being removed from its account.
In a statement to the press, GWI said the fraud was discovered by the Finance Department upon reconciliation of accounts for March 2021.The amounts are $17,489,417 debited on March 16, 2021 and $12,327,515 debited on March 24, 2021.
Upon querying, the bank informed GWI that the amounts represent payments made via wire transfer instructions, payable to persons resident in the USA. The names of the recipients are Troy Robertson of 1405 Brooklyn Avenue AF2F Brooklyn Avenue, New York 11210 and Deyannera Mohamed of 1998 Pacific Street, Brooklyn NY 11216.
It has been established that both signatures on the wire transfer instruction letters were forged.
GWI was keen to note that it has never conducted business with these persons or at no time initiated or instructed the bank to carry out these fictitious transactions.
Guyana Standard understands the Guyana Police Force was promptly called in and is currently conducting investigations. Police finger print experts have since confirmed that the signatures were forged. The Bank of Guyana has also been notified of this fraud.
