Fraud Squad ramps up probe into $2m UHWI payroll scheme

Investigators from the Fraud Squad are widening their probe to snag the mastermind and other players believed to be behind a nearly $2-million payroll fraud that was recently uncovered at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).

Sums totalling $1.7 million were reportedly fraudulently transferred to the accounts of persons under the guise that they were workers at the institution last February.

Four persons implicated in the fraud were arrested and charged between May 11 and June 8.

Those fingered are siblings Felroni Bailey, 47, self-employed, and Romario Bailey, welder, both of Portsmouth, St Catherine, Doneil Lawrence, higgler, 35, of Point Hill, also in St Catherine, and Lionel Sinclair, 40, bus driver of a Kingston 20 address.

The quartet, who were granted station bail, appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court yesterday on charges of receiving stolen property, conspiracy to defraud and unlawfully making available devices or data for the commission of an offence and their bail was extended for them to return to court on September 21.

It is alleged that $793,000 was deposited into Sinclair’s bank account and $404,000 into Lawrence’s bank account.

Felroni allegedly received $126,000 while $224,000 was reportedly lodged in her brother’s account.

The fraud was reportedly uncovered last March by internal auditors at the UHWI.

Fraud Squad detectives attached to the Counter Terrorism and Organised Crime Investigation Branch were subsequently called in.

In the meantime, the police are continuing their investigation to capture the alleged mastermind behind the fraud and other players. The probe will also seek to find out whether any employee of the hospital is involved in the scheme.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com