Local pharmaceutical supplier pleads guilty to conspiracy charges in the USA

Local pharmaceutical supplier Davendra Rampersaud, against whom charges were dismissed last year for supplying the Health Ministry with expired HIV test kits, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the United States of America (USA) and is expected to be sentenced shortly.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of the six-count indictment. Rampersaud, who was arraigned before Judge Richard M Gergel, was granted US $60,000 bail. He is accused of conspiring with others to divert kits intended for Kenya to Guyana which were made for by USAID.

The conspiracy involving his company, Caribbean Medical Supplies Inc (CSMI) is that he, in collusion with others, whose names were not stated in court documents, supplied the Ministry of Health, Guyana with HIV testing kits that the USAID had paid for. 

Rampersaud and others are accused of knowingly stealing, purloining, and converting for their own gain, and with the use of others, health commodities that had been paid for by USAID as part of a health care benefit programme. They knowingly, without authority, sold, conveyed and disposed of the same commodities. 

It was stated that between November 2015 and December 2019, Rampersaud and his company made payments in excess of US$177,000 to another defendant (name withheld in court documents). The money represented payment for medical commodities which had been diverted from Kenya and other countries to Guyana.

They are also accused of willfully stealing and converting, without authority to the use of themselves and others, properties and other assets valued in excess of US$58,000 which were intended for the use and benefit of the people of Kenya.

If convicted, the court has already been petitioned for Rampersaud and his co-accused to forfeit to the US government any property, real or personal, constituting, derived from or traceable to proceeds they obtained directly as a result of the offences. 

Rampersaud was arrested in the US on a January 19, 2023 arrest warrant. It was noted in court documents that the conspiracy continued even though during the period the accused and others were warned that what they were indulging in was illegal.

In May 2022, the charge against Rampersaud for selling fake HIV test kits to the Ministry of Health, was dismissed by Magistrate Zamilla Ally-Seepaul.

He had been on trial for the offence of “Sale and Distribution of Device with misleading representation contrary to Section 18 (1) of the Food and Drugs Act Cap 34:03 of 1971.”

He had denied the charge which stated that on January 16, 2020, at Area G Hydronie Railway, Parika, East Bank Essequibo (EBE), he sold and supplied 400 units (20 packs) of Uni-Gold HIV test kits, batch #HIV7120026, expiry date December 5, 2020, with misleading representation, to the Ministry’s Materials Management Unit (MMU), Diamond, East Bank Demerara.

At the close of the prosecution’s case, however, the Magistrate upheld a no-case submission presented by Rampersaud’s lawyer, Latchmie Rahamat. 

Magistrate Ally-Seepaul agreed with the lawyer’s submission that the prosecution was unable to provide evidence linking Rampersaud to the delivery or selling of test kits to the MMU.

The presiding magistrate further agreed with Rahamat that there is absolutely no evidence linking Rampersaud to the delivery of any Unigold HIV test kits of either batch numbers that were testified to before the Court.

“Further, there is no evidence showing that [Rampersaud] had any knowledge that any expiry date was changed and was false, misleading on any packaging because there is no evidence that he supplied or sold any of the items to the Materials Management Unit,” Rahamat had argued.

Without evidence to support these essential elements of the case, Rahamat had submitted that the “prosecution has failed miserably” to make out a case against her client. As such, she urged the court to dismiss the matter and not call upon her client to lead a defence.

The company, Caribbean Medical Supplies Inc., was charged by the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department (GA-FDD) with the offence.

According to reports, a quantity of the HIV Test Kits was seized by the GA-FDD from MMU of the Ministry of Public Health, and from local hospitals and laboratories.

The probe was launched into the fake HIV test kits after an Irish manufacturer wrote to the then Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence, warning that it is aware that there are counterfeit Uni-Gold HIV test kits in Guyana.

According to the manufacturer, the fake boxes were created with expiry dates extended by 17 months, and the kits were repacked in them.  The Irish pharmaceutical company said that the products were already six months out of date when it was brought to Guyana.