Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Britain fires SOCU advisor for pursuing parallel job
His contract with the British Government—guiding his stint in Guyana—stipulated that he was only supposed to work for that government as an advisor to the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU). But, last year, Dr. Sam Sittlington went ahead and registered a local branch of a fraud-detecting company he owns in the United Kingdom—The Fraud Company (Guyana).
Dr. Sittlington’s contract would have come to a natural end in March 2020. However, it was terminated yesterday after news broke about his pursuit of private gains here.
The British High Commission issued a very short statement yesterday confirming the termination.
The statement read, “In light of the information about Dr. Sam Sittlington’s private business interests, his contract in Guyana has been terminated with immediate effect.”
The Fraud Company (Guyana) Inc. was incorporated under the Companies Act of Guyana on September 25, 2018. Sittlington, is listed as the Director while Orisa Branche is the Secretary. The company is authorized to issue one million shares at $1 each.
Sittlington was hired by the British government for a Guyana assignment in 2016, in an advisory and training capacity at SOCU.
This newspaper received a package containing copies of The Fraud Company (Guyana)’s registration and a note from an unidentified source.
Former Advisor to SOCU, Sam Sittlington
The note stated, “It is highly unethical for a consultant who is being paid by a foreign government to advise and train a sensitive department such as SOCU to establish a company, which will undertake similar work.”
The concerned citizen continued, “The consultant is privy to highly confidential information on numerous persons as SOCU has embarked on fishing expeditions on most of the cases under investigation.”
It was further stated that, “information gleaned from SOCU could be used inappropriately. The suggestion was that Sittlington could use the information he gathers through SOCU to advance his private business.
Sittlington’s company in the United Kingdom named The Fraud Company Ltd, was established long before he was hired to come to assist Guyana. However, this newspaper understands that he nevertheless took the job under the agreement that he would operate only on behalf of the United Kingdom in Guyana.
According to The Fraud Company Ltd’s website, it offers unique services in the financial crime environment.
Our company has the expertise and knowledge through our associations to cover all aspects of training, investigation, risk management, asset recovery, compliance and governance in the areas of fraud, anti-money laundering, counter terrorist financing, bribery and corruption and environmental risk. We have a proven track record in all these areas and due to that success and demand for additional services we have begun to expand into other related fields.”
The People’s Progressive Party/ Civic Opposition long expressed many concerns about Sittlington. The party accused him of being too close with the government. Also he was accused of having an “agenda.”
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