An honest cop in too deep

Jul 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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– death came to him while he was investigating his own

By Michael Jordan

He was a strapping man with a ready smile, and he didn’t really look like one’s idea of the hard-boiled cop.
But he had a no-nonsense side to him. He’d received death-threats for putting two alleged drug dealers behind bars, and he’d earned a Best Cop award for that.
But it’s one thing to investigate a civilian. It’s another thing entirely to investigate your own, especially when your own outrank you.
An investigation of that nature fell into his lap, and some believe that this investigation cost this local ‘Serpico’ his life.
Back then, there were only a few hints about corruption in the Guyana Police Force.
That changed in 1993, when a rookie reporter received a telephone call from a police contact.
The contact claimed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had been bugging the phones of a Canada-based Guyanese man who was involved in smuggling hundreds of people into Canada.
He claimed that the Mounties had tapped the man’s phone and had recorded numerous conversations between him and several junior and senior policemen. He proceeded to name names.
To the reporter, who had grown up believing that most cops were incorruptible, the story was so far-fetched that he ignored it for an entire day.
But the following day, the contact called again and berated the reporter for not following up the tip. He insisted to the skeptical reporter that all he had said was true.
This time, the reporter went to his editor-in-chief, Sharief Khan.
After listening, the editor-in-chief dialed a number that put him in contact with the Commissioner of Police. The Commissioner was shocked that the news had come to light, and that the press knew the names of some of the alleged perpetrators.
“I can’t say that the boy is wrong,” the Commissioner told Khan.
But he insisted that “no gazetted police officer” had been implicated.
After that, other police sources began to talk.
They revealed that the voices of at least 31 police ranks, and airline and airport officials had been identified in the recordings with the ‘backtracker’. The ranks included an Assistant Police Commissioner.
Even the name of a magistrate was mentioned. One of the ringleaders was recorded saying that ‘backtrack’ clients who were caught at the airport should be sent to this magistrate since the magistrate was known to give light sentences for this offence.
Shortly after, the reporter had a chance encounter with a superintendent of police who had been in charge of the Narcotics Division. He’d interviewed the detective a year prior, when the rank had been given the Best Cop award for his work and fearlessness in a drug investigation.
He revealed that he was heading the backtrack investigation. It was he who had travelled to Canada and identified the voices of his colleagues and others. He disclosed that attempts were being made to have the alleged culprits extradited to Canada.
But the cop kept his cards close to his chest, and only allowed the reporter the merest glance at transcripts that had been made of the conversations.
By now, some of the junior ranks whose names were mentioned had left the Force. The reporter took a trip up the East Coast of Demerara and met one of the former cops, who was now a minibus operator.
He spoke without embarrassment about his involvement with the people-smuggling ring.
He said that members of the gang try to befriend policemen and shower them with monetary gifts long before attempting to recruit them.
He spoke of one very senior policeman who allegedly played a key role in smuggling clients safely through the Timehri International Airport.
According to him, there was one no-nonsense female rank who refused to get involved in the racket. She sometimes worked at the airport, and whenever clients were to be smuggled, the senior rank would have the policewoman posted elsewhere, thus affording the clients safe passage.
This senior police rank was reportedly recorded by the RCMP demanding more money from the ringleader for “moving the woman form the airport.”
The ex-cop also alleged that there were others in the police hierarchy who were working with the gang, but who were apparently escaping investigation.
Not only did he name names, but he also gave the alleged code names of two senior officers whom he claimed had close ties with the ring’s headman.
Back in Georgetown, the reporter contacted the investigating rank by phone.
The detective expressed shock at the allegations and insisted that the two officers were being framed.
But a few days later, he explained that he had heard the allegations before, but he was taking precautions just in case someone was listening in on his conversation.
The investigator had a stroke of misfortune. During a trip to Canada, the burly cop slipped on ice and fractured one of his legs.
On his return, he appeared to be disillusioned and distrustful. He was adamant that persons were tapping his phone, and that the culprits were some of his colleagues. About a week later, the reporter received the news that the detective was dead. He had reportedly suffered a sudden heart attack.
What had begun as one of the biggest investigations into corruption in the Guyana Police Force came to an abrupt end.
Some have suggested that the voices could not be definitively linked to the corrupt ranks. But this argument is somewhat flimsy, since certainly the phone numbers could have implicated the culprits.
Other police sources suggested that the case died after one of the alleged major players—- still a senior figure in the Force—had warned that he would not go down alone, and had threatened to bring down other senior colleagues if he was ever charged.
Footnote:
In June 2002, Thomas Carrol a former Economic Affairs officer at the US Embassy in Guyana, was sentenced to 22 years in prison in America for his involvement in a massive visa sales racket originating from Guyana. Carrol alleged that he had recruited members of the Guyana Police Force’s Target Special Squad (TSS) as enforcers to protect his scheme and to force his customers to pay up.

If you have any information about this or any other unusual case, please contact Kaieteur News by letter or telephone at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office. Our numbers are 22-58458, 22-58465, 22-58482 and 22-58491. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address: [email protected]

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