Woman disappears after renting one apartment to seven different tenants 

Nov 08, 2024 News

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Kaieteur News- A woman reportedly changed her phone numbers and disappeared with cash deposits (close to one million dollars) after renting an apartment in East Ruimveldt, Georgetown to at least seven different tenants.

Kaieteur News understands that the list could be longer after more victims started coming forward, following public Facebook posts about the alleged fraudster. Many of the victims have lodged police reports but the woman is yet to be arrested and they fear that she could trick more persons.

Kaieteur News learnt that the woman uses many different names and aliases, phone numbers and social media profiles to trap her victims. To lure them in, she would usually post pictures of the apartment on the Facebook Market Place platform claiming that it is available for rent.

Unsuspecting tenants would contact her for the apartment and she would tell them the price and say it will be ready by a given date. Once the tenant is interested, she would arrange for them to meet her up and make a down-payment. To make it even more transparent, she would give them a receipt for the payment and keep in touch. Trusting her word, the tenants would wait for the apartment to be ready but that date would never come.

Victims began realising that she was a scammer only after learning that someone else was living in the apartment and had no intentions of leaving anytime soon. By this time, it would be too late to relocate the alleged scammer. According to victims, she would block them and change her numbers when they try to get back their money.

Fed-up of her scheme, four victims reached out to Kaieteur News and shared their story. Ashanti Griffith said she made contact with the woman for the apartment and made a down-payment of $90,000 in September. On that occasion, the woman gave a particular name. Griffith was told that the apartment will be ready in a short time but her wait turned into months. “We went to the police station and them got we round and round because of this young lady…I don’t know who the hell is she”, Griffith said while adding “She cousin even confirm that yes she does be doing these things.”

The alleged scammer’s cousin had promised victims to total up all the deposits and pay them back, but it seems as if she scammed way too many people and the sum was too much for the cousin to afford.

“We were able to find a new contact for her (scammer) but she blocked us again.” Griffith said while noting that woman is out scamming more people.

“She put up the apartment available again and guess what she do, she raised the price,” Griffith told Kaieteur News.  Another victim, Alicia Goriah shared her story too.  In a text message to Kaieteur News, Goriah wrote; “So, I saw the place and I was in desperate need, so as soon as I saw it, I contacted her.

I went and she show me the place and I did the deposit of a hundred and twenty thousand ($120,000) and she say the place was ‘gonna’ be ready the 10th of October. I made the deposits on the 18th of September so I would keep calling to check on how the place was going cause she told me to call at all time coming down to the new month. I called her and she told she got bad news, her daughter was on life machine so the place didn’t get fix and she gonna refund my money. I called back but no answer. I only got response after leaving her a message.

Goriah said the woman did refund her some of the money but disappeared with the rest. Darshnie Balack a third victim related, she contacted the alleged scammer for the apartment in July and was told that it will be ready by August. Falling into the trap, she made a down-payment of $100,000. August came and went by and Balack is yet to move into the apartment.

A fourth victim, Jairo David Fernández said, that he was told to make a security deposit of $60,000 in two parts and he complied but like the others he lost his cash. He reportedly made his first payment on October 14 and a second on October 20.  These are only four of the victims that the woman allegedly scammed.

Some of them made Facebook posts and more victims started coming forward. One of them, Shurbet Caeser, commented under one of the posts, “I now come home and see this post. This lady did the same to me, I paid her on the 11th of August, the same $90,000. I got my receipt and she told me that the house will be ready by month-end because they were doing some work on the house and the other tenant was in the process of moving out some things”.

Investigations are ongoing.

 

(Woman disappears after renting one apartment to seven different tenants )

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• Apartment, close to one million dollars, East Ruimveldt, Georgetown, tenants

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