Man charged in missing cigarettes case

In news from Magistrates’ Court, twenty-three year old Giovanni Saldano, a former warehouse clerk for Madisco, was charged with the theft of twenty-five boxes of assorted cigarettes valuing fifty-six thousand dollars when he appeared before Chief Magistrate Margaret McKenzie today. Saldano pleaded not guilty to the charge and the prosecution objected to bail on the grounds of the prevalence of the offence, the amount of money involved and the fact that the defendant is unemployed. But Mckenzie did not uphold the objection and offered bail to Saldano in the sum of eight thousand dollars and adjourned the case for August twenty-ninth.

On July seventeenth, personnel from the police’s Criminal Investigation Branch went to Madisco distributor on Cleghorn Street where they were told by the manager, David Velasquez, that on July fourth, twenty-five boxes of cigarettes went missing from their warehouses. Velasquez told police that it was Saldano who authorised the sale of the cigarettes to a store at the corner of logwood and Sarstoon Street. According to the manager, Saldano soon went on leave and did not return to work when he had completed his leave. Based on the report by Velasquez, Saldano has been charged.