By Sue-Ann Wayow
A TOBAGO man charged with fraud is granted bail but not permitted to leave the country.
Avril Davis, 46, a farmer, businessman and sanitation worker, of Belmont Farm Road, Mason Hall, Tobago, pleaded not guilty to obtaining $1,600,000 by false pretence on Wednesday before Senior Scarborough Magistrate Christine Charles.
He was granted $120,000 bail with a surety, police reported on Friday.
Davis was also ordered to report to his local police once per week until the next scheduled hearing on February 7, 2024.
The accused was arrested on September 19, by a team of detectives attached to the Tobago Fraud Squad Office, who were following leads into a March 17, 2023 police report in which a woman told police that she paid a man $1,600,000, during the period June 2015 to August 2017.
She told detectives that she made the payments to the suspect after she was allegedly made to believe that he was authorised to offer for sale to her a two-storey house situated at Mason Hall, Tobago.
When the woman attempted to occupy the property, however, she was unable to do so and was informed that it was mortgaged to a credit union.
The woman then attempted to secure a refund from the suspect but it proved futile. She reported the matter to the police and following enquiries led by WPC Bunbury, the accused was charged with the offence.
