On Thursday, Deputy Police Commissioner Calvin Brutus appeared in court with three others to face a series of charges and was placed on $9.1 million bail, according to the GPF.

He was charged with two other counts of conspiracy to commit a felony – obtaining by false pretense. In a separate charge, Adonika Aulder, Mr Brutus’s wife, was held to answer to two counts of money laundering. They were not required to enter pleas and were placed on $1,000,000 bond each.

Additionally, Mr. Brutus was subsequently charged with 21 counts of official responsibility, under the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMAA). He was not required to plead to the charges.

The case was adjourned until November 18, 2024 for report and Mr Brutus is due to return to court later to hear the remainder of the charges. Official supply liability under the FMAA has apparently never been invoked before.

Section 85 of the FMAA describes this responsibility as follows: An official who:

falsifies any account, statement, receipt or other document issued or maintained for the purposes of this Act, the regulations, financial circulars or any other instrument made under this Act;

conspires or colludes with any other person to defraud the State or provides an opportunity for any person to defraud the State; Or

knowingly allows any other person to contravene a provision of this Act,

is guilty of an indictable offense and liable, on conviction, to a fine of two million dollars and to imprisonment for three years.

Mr. Brutus faces serious charges. Some of those read out in court on Thursday include that Mr Brutus issued two checks for $6 million and $7 million from the Guyana Police Force to him.

It was also alleged that on November 16, 2023, at GPF headquarters, he asked Inspector Collins of the Police Consumers Co-op Society to prepare a check in his name for $20 million. The money was supposed to be used to purchase items for the GPF, but they were never purchased and were allegedly deposited into Mr Brutus’ personal account.

Third, on June 31, at the GPF headquarters, he allegedly ordered another police officer to hand over 221 payment vouchers, which he allegedly paid to his wife.

It is further alleged that on November 28 and 29, 2023, at the GPF headquarters, he asked Inspector Collins of the Police Consumers Coop Society to prepare checks in his name worth $60 million belonging to the Police Consumers Co-op Society. The money was supposed to be used for repairs and maintenance of the same police consumer cooperative, but Mr Brutus allegedly collected the money and used it for his own purposes.

Mr Brutus was also accused of theft. It is alleged that he used a police officer to steal $60 million and $20 million from GPF at different intervals, which relates to the two audits prepared by Inspector Collins.

Mr. Brutus also faces two charges related to money laundering. It is alleged that he paid $85 million for a property on 5th Street, Alberttown, Georgetown, with money from the proceeds of crime.

Secondly, it is alleged that Mr Brutus paid $20 million for a property in Pouderoyen, West Bank Demerara. This money came directly or indirectly from crime.

Before his fall, Mr. Brutus was on a trajectory to the top of the force. Given the seriousness of the accusations against him, two things stand out clearly. The shaken credibility of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) has been further damaged. The accusations against Mr. Brutus constitute a mortal blow to the force and, given the weakness of its leadership and the government’s clear intention to subjugate and render it malleable, a dangerous turning point has been reached. This force needs immediate rescue and the restoration of a modicum of respectability. This can only be achieved through the temporary recruitment of external leaders. This is something that has been advocated by this newspaper since the murder of Monica Reece in 1993. The PPP/C governments never heeded this need because they could not envisage losing control of the police force. .

The government may no longer have a choice now. With the vast expansion of the economy, billions of US dollars of oil revenues flowing into the country, increasing external and inward investments and increasing vigilance around the AML/CFT framework, having a Deputy Commissioner of Police facing serious money laundering charges is a good thing. to mock the functioning and authority of the force. How can she begin to recover without drastic changes?

The second point worth making about the accusations made by Mr Brutus is that they did not happen overnight or in a vacuum. Given the magnitude of the accusations against him – many of which have yet to be read – different levels of law enforcement must have been complicit or at least compromised. The fact that these alleged crimes could have occurred without earlier detection speaks volumes about the leadership of the force and internal accountability systems. It is unclear what motivated these accusations at this point, but it is clear that due diligence and compliance with financial responsibility laws were absent.

The maneuvers are not over. A day after his accusations, Mr. Brutus’s lawyers suddenly withdrew the suit he had filed against the police commissioner, the attorney general, the interior minister and others. The claims made and reliefs sought by Mr Brutus in this action were entirely serious. Did he file this action only to try to avoid charges? Has he now abandoned the action to be able to concentrate on the great defense that he must now mount against the dozens of accusations brought against him? Or is there even more in the mortar than the pestle?

These accusations against Mr Brutus raise major questions about financial probity in the upper echelons of the police and the answers lie in radical action to cauterize its ills.