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Former GRA staff wanted for fraud mulls asylum in US
Former Guyana Revenue Authority employee, Gregory Barnes, who is fighting deportation in the United States of America, may be contemplating seeking asylum.
This is according to his attorney Kurt Saccone.
Attorney Kurt R. Saccone
Barnes, 32, fled to the United States of America in 2009 to escape possible fraud charges that involves millions of dollars.
He was arrested in New York in February on an Interpol warrant and is currently being held by US authorities at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in Batavia, New York.
When contacted by Kaieteur News for a comment, Mr. Saccone, who was vacationing in Florida, issued the following statement:
“We represent Mr. Gregory Barnes. Gregory thanks all his supporters for their best wishes. Gregory has fond feelings for his homeland and wishes to someday return to Guyana but under different circumstances, and he hopes that the GRA does not force him to apply for asylum in the United States.
“There is much more to this story than has been reported to date, and those facts will be revealed in due time, especially if the GRA persists in its efforts to seek Gregory’s return.
“We have no further comment at this time.”
Saccone is a former U.S. Department of Justice official, who practices U.S. Immigration Law in New York.
Mr. Barnes’ next court hearing is May 1, 2014 before Judge John Reid at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility.
Mr. Barnes’ case has been pending in the court for nearly two months.
It is thought that he is seeking lawful status in the United States. However, his strategy has not been revealed.
Back in February this year a Buffalo News online report said that Cheektowaga police pulled over a four-door sedan for an expired inspection and illegal tinted windows.
Cheektowaga is part of the state of New York.
It turned out that the Guyanese driver of George Urban Boulevard in Cheektowaga was wanted by Interpol.
A computer check revealed there was an active warrant through Interpol on Barnes who was suspected of embezzling somewhere between $6M and $300M from GRA.
Barnes was stopped about 18:30hrs while driving a gold-colored Infiniti.
The warrant was confirmed through U.S. National Central Bureau, a division of Interpol U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C., Cheektowaga police said.
This newspaper had reported that in 2009, Barnes fled Guyana after he was reportedly being investigated for allegedly defrauding GRA of over $300M.
Local investigators, who badly wanted to get their hands on him, turned to Interpol for help and posted a wanted bulletin.
Investigators believed back then that Barnes conspired with other staffers, including an IT official of GRA, to delete evidence of taxes and duties paid by businesses to the agency from the main database.
However, the fraud unraveled after the IT employee failed to delete a payment made. The cashier was reportedly questioned for two days by GRA before he fled the country.
Another staffer, Garfield Pearson, of South Ruimveldt Park, was charged with four counts of embezzlement. It was alleged that in October 2009, at the GRA Head Office, located then on Main Street, he stole over $6M from his employer, the GRA.
Pearson was Systems Engineer at the time and was posted in the Information Technology department, the Prosecution said. Barnes had reportedly fled Guyana in the midst of the investigations.
The police contended in the charges against Pearson and Barnes that between January 2008 and October 2009, the latter was employed as cashier. It was alleged that the two conspired to steal over $3M paid by businesses for containers by deleting records of the transactions on the GRA system.
Barnes was allegedly caught with $1M cash in his possession, according to Prosecutors.
GRA sources, back in 2009, said that the scheme was much larger and a total up to $300M may have been lost in revenues by GRA and by extension, the state.
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