THE NEW TODAY is calling on the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) as a matter of grave urgency to approach INTERPOL to help apprehend the man behind Legendway International, the building contractor company that allegedly scammed several locals of over a million dollars in a housing construction scam.
This newspaper has firsthand knowledge of some of the persons affected by the Florida-based Orville Roberts as two of them were directed by us to the police to file criminal complaints against the contractor.
It is very unfortunate that the police were able to apprehend the very elusive Roberts who was under investigation for many months and allowed him to slip from their grasp – not through the back door but the front door at the Maurice Bishop International Airport (MBIA).
The police have a serious duty and responsibility to make amends for this major bungling on their part.
The people who are affected by the Orville Roberts scam are by and large poor Grenadians who are trying to improve their lot in life.
One of the persons who approached us to complain about giving the contractor EC$190, 000.00 in cash as a down-payment to build a house is living in the United States and comes from ordinary stock in St. David.
This is an individual who is doing more than one jobs during the cold and bitter winter months in New York in order to get a home for her eventual retirement and was tricked by Roberts.
The other is a young female who is trying to make a life on her own and borrowed EC$100, 000.00 from a local commercial bank to give to the Legendway International individual to start construction of her dream home in the St. David area.
THE NEW TODAY took a deliberate decision not to publicise the ordeal of these two individuals in an effort not to alert Roberts but to pass on the information to the police to put them in a good position to arrest the individual whenever he touched down on Grenadian soil from the United States.
The manner in which Mr. Roberts was able to move out of Grenada with such ease has left a bad taste in our mouths about the competence of some of the officers within RGPF.
The police force has a responsibility to use every means at their disposal including INTERPOL to bring back Roberts into Grenada to account to the several persons he has left in distress and financial misery.
Acting Commissioner of Police Edvin Martin also has a task on his hand to determine whether there was no collusion between Roberts and some persons in RGPF to facilitate the successful effort of the contractor to slip out of the island and not face prosecution in connection with the multi-million dollar housing scam.
This newspaper has obtained some sensitive information on what might have happened but out of an abundance of caution will not divulge anything at this stage.
However, Acting Commissioner Martin will have to determine whether any member or members of the force took advantage of a particular situation that developed to aid the Legendway International man to easily walk pass Immigration Officers at MBIA and board a plane for Piarco in Trinidad and then transfer onto a Caribbean Airlines Flight into Florida.
The information seems to suggest that there might be a rogue cop or two who used a similar unfortunate occurrence to also facilitate a man facing criminal charges to get a second passport to attempt to leave the island.
It should be noted that within days of the court ordering the individual to surrender his passport, he was able to report the said passport as lost and got another one without any checks being done by Immigration Department to ascertain the accuracy of the information provided to them by the man.
The Commissioner of Police should be aware that there are bad apples in any police force the world over.
In the case of Grenada itself ,some of our law enforcement officials have been engaged in very questionable activities over the years that would leave any right thinking person to conclude that bribery or spite are at play.
There was an incident a few years ago when former Accountant General in the Ministry of Finance, Garvey Louison filed a criminal complaint with RGPF against an Entertainer who was apprehended by the police in neighbouring Dominica.
The individual was deported and the Dominica police communicated with their counterparts in Grenada that the suspect would be put on a plane that was passing through Grenada enroute to Trinidad and as such an opportunity was presented for him to be arrested by RGPF.
This newspaper was told that nothing was done by the local police to pick up the suspect for questioning in light of the criminal complaint from Louison and the man was allowed to enter the airport, leave the airport without a question being asked of him for an alleged crime committed against a Grenadian.
Did somebody give the Police High Command instructions not to act in that particular situation?
The same question can be asked about the main man behind Legendway International? Did somebody engage in a particular act to assist him to leave the island?
Mr. Commissioner, a lot of people in Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique are watching and taking note of many issues involving the police and their activities.