Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
Missing pensioner’s car…Con man caught…minus vehicle!
O’Neil Simon, the man accused of fleecing 72-year-old Sukdai Ramsammy of her blue Toyota Corolla, HC 5044, was yesterday nabbed by the police, but not with the woman’s vehicle. He is currently detained at a city police
A detective cautions O’Neil Simon and places him under arrest.
station and according to a source, will likely be placed before the court and charged with fraudulent conversion.
The alleged victim, Sukdai Ramsammy, a resident of Sachi Bazaar Street, Prashad Nagar, told Kaieteur News that she placed an advertisement in a local newspaper in late March of this year for a hire car driver, since the vehicle was parked in her yard “doing nothing”.
Ramsammy said that when Simon initially came he was accompanied by a young child and she thought that she was about to make a good decision. Simon reportedly told the pensioner that apart from plying the taxi trade, the only other business he would use the car for was to attend church and take his children to school.
Further, the woman said that she had anticipated that she would have used the money from the hire car to help with her medical expenses, since she has severe arthritis in the left knee.
An emotional Ramsammy said that she agreed with Simon that he would ‘work’ the car and at the end of the week he would be expected to give her $15,000.
Things went well for the first two weeks, so much so that the woman even added Simon’s name to her insurance policy. It was at the end of that 14-day period that everything changed for the worse.
Simon stopped taking the elderly woman’s calls, and she enlisted her son to help in this regard. The son said that he managed to make contact with Simon, and was given all assurances that the car would have been returned.
The man said that after constantly calling Simon, he was instructed to uplift the vehicle, but when he and the pensioner went to the location provided, all they were confronted with was a track filled with bushes.
O’Neil Simon, the man accused of fleecing a 72-year-old woman of her car.
The man said knowing how the issue had taken a negative effect on his mother, he drove for a few seconds down the desolate pathway, but soon saw a group of men approaching with cutlasses and he retreated.
They soon left, and when Simon was contacted he told the woman’s son ‘don’t call me back’. Not knowing what else to do, the woman said she went to the police and when she showed the ranks at the station the man’s photograph the policemen exclaimed, ‘is dah thief you give your car mommy?’
The day after the story was published, a passenger who travelled with a hire car from the Stabroek Market car park, recognised Simon as the driver. The car (not the pensioner’s) was attached to a city taxi service.
‘A’ Division Commander Marlon Chapman was informed of Simon’s whereabouts and he arranged for two officers from Kitty Police station to accompany the individual who had made the report to the taxi base.
All this time, Simon was unaware of what was about to go down. He turned up at the base in good time after hearing about a potential Georgetown to Parika drop being requested.
When he arrived, however, he was promptly arrested and taken to the Kitty police station. He reportedly told ranks there that he no longer has the elderly woman’s car, since he parked it on a bridge in the Joint Services Scheme in North Ruimveldt. He claimed that he had called the woman’s son and informed him where the car was parked.
The pensioner’s son repeated the story to the lawmen that when he went to the location the car was not there, and instead, he saw men with cutlasses approaching, thus he quickly retreated.
Simon admitted that he should have taken the car to the pensioner rather than leaving it where he claimed he did. He explained that his only reason for doing that was because he had some outstanding money for Ramsammy and he had a minor accident with the vehicle.
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