Sales tax employee charged with extorting businessman

An employee of the Sales Tax Department has been charged with extortion after being busted trying to hustle money from a local businessman. According to Lloyd Sutherland, owner of Royal Catering Services, on the fourteenth of November, two men identifying themselves as Leodan Torres and a Mr. Bol, employees of the Sales Tax Unit, walked into his offices on Gordon Street. Sutherland says the men informed him that he owed sales tax arrears in excess of ten thousand dollars. The two told Sutherland that if he made a fifteen hundred dollar payment to them, they would forget about the arrears. When the businessman told Torres and Bol he didn’t have the money, the public officers worked out a payment plan of one hundred dollars a month and left, promising to come back for the first instalment. However, Sutherland became suspicious of the visit because he had receipts to prove he had paid all his taxes and decided to contact the police. A trap was set and at the appointed hour, Torres and Bol returned to Sutherland and promptly collected two marked fifty dollar bills. Within minutes, authorities detained Torres and found the two marked bills in his possession. In Magistrate’s court today, twenty-eight year old Torres was offered bail in the sum of two thousand dollars plus one surety of the same amount. The case has been adjourned to January sixth 2006.