HUMANS have been ripping each other off for millennia and we are quite familiar with such synonyms as con artist, crook, shark, swindler, hustler and sharpie. It is an old school of criminality and con artists have been around since the Middle Ages.
Coming closer to home , we learnt from a recent media report that a few scammers have set out to host fake events in New York, using the name of His Excellency President David A Granger. Guyanese in the U.S., the report said, are being warned against two ‘bogus’ events scheduled to be held in the name of President David Granger in New York in June. Flyers that are purportedly from a NY-based, not-for-profit organization, Guyana Unity Movement Inc., have been used to advertise two events reportedly billed for June 9 and June 11.
One of the fake events is a “Presidential Unity and Soul Black Tie Gala’ to be held at Springfield Boulevard, Queens Village, New York, touting tickets at US$150 each. Then there is to be a show at the Thomas Jefferson High School Football field at Fountain and Flatlands Avenue, N.Y., where President Granger is allegedly billed to deliver remarks and greetings.
Moreover, flaunting the star power of popular Guyanese artistes, Jomo, Adrian Dutchin, Terry Gajraj and Lisa Punch are reportedly billed to headline the fake event, while patrons are being charged a meagre US$10.

Meanwhile, a NY-based online news site, Diaspora Time, has described the events as a “scam” and warned Guyanese and West Indians: “Beware, that the events promoted in these (Guyana Unity Movement Inc.) flyers, which we found in circulation, are a scam to exploit the Guyanese people for money.” “Greedy people want to fill their pockets with your money,” the online news site warned.
The news site also advised that persons should make contact with the Ministry of the Presidency in Guyana. Moreover, Director of Communications in the Ministry of the Presidency, Mark Archer, has been quoted as telling the Guyana Chronicle: “What I can say is that the President will not be attending those events. I can say it is not on his schedule… he will not be in NY at that time.”

However, just a week ago, the Office of the First Lady Sandra Granger put out an advisory here that warned citizens about reports in which residents in Georgetown and other areas in the country were being contacted via telephone and text messages to request payment in return for an opportunity to be awarded scholarships.
Con artists appear in every society and some even reach folk-hero status, by people who admire a sleek and clever shyster whose fancy words and slick tactics promise a golden future to the greedy, the gullible and the malleable. In the late 1960s, Georgetown residents had heard of the exploits of ‘Dr Crime’, the infamous con artist, Romeo Bacchus, from Albouystown. He reportedly ‘sold’ Parade Ground and City Hall to credulous real estate investors.

According to a one-time schoolmate of his, ‘Dr Crime’ is reputed to have impersonated the Indian High Commissioner from Suriname and dressed in a dhoti, he sat next to Prime Minister Forbes Burnham at a Caribbean Table Tennis Championship being held at Queens College.
It is apt to reflect on the wiles of con artists, since we live in a perilous world. Crime is everywhere, in every form worldwide, but with con artists crime appears in quite a dubious form.

‘Con,’ short for confidence, and as the word implies, confidence tricksters take advantage of people’s “misplaced and unquestioning” trust in the goodness and honesty of others. Con artists operate in such devious ways that they are not quite easy to spot and persons do not readily realise that a crime is being committed. We have read about Ponzi schemes, a fraud in which belief in the success of a non-existent enterprise is fostered by the payment of quick returns to the first investors from money invested by later investors.
Bernard “Bernie” Madoff is an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier and admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. All such schemes are basically built on treachery and lies and in this digital age, the options seem unlimited. New York-based Guyanese businessman, Edul Ahmad, was recently sentenced to two years in prison for running a US$3 million mortgage fraud scheme.

In the meantime, detectives of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) are intensifying investigations following a number of forensic audits referred to it, and it is likely that some of the cases which are basically ‘white collar’ crime will fall into the realm of scams, underscoring the impact of greed, corruption and fraud. This form of crime is also a contributory factor to poverty, robbing the country of its assets.