Guyanese cons people through Facebook

Jul 12, 2012 News

Former One Laptop Per Family (OLPF) employee, Aubrey Smith, has been accused of fleecing several persons of large sums of money by posing as a retailer of Blackberry cellular phones on the social network, Facebook.
Reports are that the young man, whose Facebook account name is “Aubrey Swagga-boss Smith”, has been advertising Blackberry cellular phones for sale at extremely low prices.

Aubrey “Swagga-boss” Smith

A number of persons responded to his posts, all interested in the prices and procedures of how they could obtain phones through “such a great deal”.
However, Smith was fleecing them all and had a history of taking people’s monies under the pretext of delivering brand new cellular phones.
Dwayne De Camp, one of the victims of this fraud, told Kaieteur News on Saturday, that he gave his sister $40,000 to pay for four Blackberry 8520 cellular phones that Smith was purportedly selling.
One of these phones was being sold for $15,000.
De Camp’s sister, Gwen, knew Smith for about six years and had him as a contact on her Facebook account.
It was through his posts of pictures and offers of a variety of Blackberry cellular phones that she became interested and told her brother about the deals.
“My sister knew him years now since he was working at the airport and when she add him on bbm and exchange numbers through this selling business he started ringing down phones to collect the money. He said that he used his money from some other business stuff to pay for the phones and that I had to give him back the money in full. When he got the money he started ignoring calls and he just vanished,” said De Camp.
According to Gwen, after numerous failed attempts at locating the man at his Waterloo Street residence and via telephone calls, she publicized the situation on her Facebook account.
When she called the OLPF office to speak with him she was told that he no longer worked there.
“I couldn’t find him and my brother wants back his money so I publicized it on my Facebook account and he got embarrassed and contacted me to take it off. I didn’t and then his mother kept calling and asking me to take it off that he is engaged to a Diplomat in England and it is bad for his reputation. She said I would get back the money but still we haven’t got back our money.”
De Camp explained that he was told that Smith boarded a flight to England a few days ago and he is worried that this man made off with his hard earned money.
Kaieteur News understands that Smith’s mother promised that within six days De Camp would be refunded “some” money.
Though today will make six days, De Camp is of the opinion that he will never be refunded his money, and that Smith will not return to Guyana.
“I was told that he is out of the country and gone to England where his fiancée lives and he is getting married. But I just want back my money and like me, there are other people who started complaining that Smith took their money. It is through me putting it up on my Facebook as well that people came forward and contacted me and my sister so that we could all see how to get back our money together.”
Gwen and her brother along with friends visited the Brickdam Police Station on Saturday where they gave statements about the situation.
“We were at the Brickdam Station for like two hours; they had us waiting that long. Then a policeman there took notes from us about the incident and asked us to go into detail and explain it all to him. After that we were told how it is a private matter,” added Gwen.
Meanwhile, Chimene Browne, told Kaieteur News on Saturday that she and another friend identified as Althea Allicock paid a large sum of money to Smith in exchange for two Blackberry cellular phones.
Browne stated that she made the payment for her phone on Monday, last, and is concerned that she has also been fleeced after speaking with a number of persons who complained that Smith took their money in exchange for cellular phones.
He failed to deliver the products which they had paid for.
“I don’t know if he is in the country or not but he robbed a set of people. I heard the guy just disappeared. Now I just want back my money,” said Browne.
Late Saturday afternoon, Kaieteur News received a telephone call from a man claiming to be Smith, stating that he was in London and about to get married.
He requested that the newspaper cease the publication of this matter as he was not in Guyana.