Bread roll swindler guilty

| 04/04/2012

cinnamon-rolls-ck-1622511-l.jpg(CNS): A 46-year-old man was convicted on Tuesday of what a judge described as a massive fraud after he stole more than $309,000 from Foster’s Supermarket by inflating invoices for baked goods. Over two years Dave Bryan, who was a partner at Cayman Bakery, managed to dupe staff at the supermarket who had trusted him and conned them out of cash by presenting invoices for huge quantities of cinnamon rolls, spicy buns and bread loaves which were never delivered. Aside from the bread roll swindle, he was also found guilty of forging his business partner’s signature to obtain a loan from the development bank.

Delivering his verdict, Justice Charles Quin described how Bryan had manipulated the system at the local supermarket and breached the trust of the staff there, who had failed to check the deliveries against invoice because they had believed him “and unwittingly processed and paid the invoices."

The judge said Bryan had managed to develop such a high level of trust with the people at that the store that he was in a position to alter the invoices even after they had been signed off and deliver the inflated amounts to the accounts office himself.

Bryan, a Jamaican national, had partnered with Bernie Bush, a West Bay businessman, in the bakery venture and although Bush acted as a “silent partner” in the business while Bryan was “heavily involved in the day to day” running, Bush’s wife was the bakery bookkeeper, who had also been duped by Bryan as he syphoned off the profit he was making from Fosters into his own accounts. Evidence presented in the trial showed that the cash received by the bakery was a fraction of the money Fosters had paid to the firm.

The con started in August of 2006 but it was not until May 2008 during a random check by a Foster’s manager at the Airport store that the scale of the bread roll swindle began to emerge when he discovered a bread  invoice for over $5,000. Such a large quantity of bread could not even hold in the bakery shelve space allocation at the shop, making it apparent something was very wrong.

For almost two years, as Bryan made the Cayman Bakery deliveries his average invoices were almost ten times the normal invoices that were presented to Foster’s by the firm’s regular driver.

After a full scale internal enquiry followed by a police investigation, the supermarket found that it had paid $395,000 for bread loaves, cinnamon rolls and spicy buns that should have cost the store no more than $56,000. The judge pointed out that on Easter buns alone Bryan had swindled the supermarket to the tune of $120,000.

Bryan had also conned a local justice of the peace to witness the signature of his and his business partner, Bernie Bush, on a loan application form, despite the fact that Bush was not present. The JP was conned by Bryan and signed as a witness to what turned out to be a forged signature. The court heard that Bryan had conned the JP by saying the $27,000 loan was urgent as it was for an industrial generator that the bakery needed for the hurricane season.

Bush first learned of Bryan’s fraudulent attempt to extend the business loan when the CIDB called him to say the cheque was ready, which raised the alarm.

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  1. Legal Seagull says:

    Has the JP been removed from office for illegally signing an untruthful document?  Has the JP been charged?  Who is this JP?  They need to be named in the public interest as documents involving them can no longer be trusted by businessmen.

  2. The Little Lady up the Road says:

    TO:  DRIVER DONT STOP AT ALL (not verified) on Sat, 04/07/2012 – 22:15

    You are living in the dark ages. Which Owner is going to operate his business like a patty shop and get up every morning to open his business?  Also, stop spreading rumours on decent managers who has keys to their place of emplyment.  99% of businesses on this island has security cameras and alarm systems. All managers have a code to enter and close 24/7.  This service is monitored 24/7 by the security company who sends an Open and Close statement to the owners twice per month. This statement tells you who is at your place anytime after closing hours.  Therefore, your story has no substance and you should desist with your viciousness.  All the businesses which you mentioned are all secured. There is no industrial businesses or restaurants in this island without proper security or working cameras in place, EXCEPT the one that Dave Bryan was operating from.  

  3. Anonymous says:

    To 8:10 : Nope! Bryan will not be Rolled Over. He will only become the chief Baker up in Northward.  Within the next six-months he wil have everybody eating out of his bakery and giving orders both to staff and inmates and collect their dough. He is that slick.

     

    • Anonymous says:

      Hopefully owa gowerment will have the brains to confiscate his revenue to help support him.

  4. Anonymous says:

    and the good thing about it is better food in Northward and certainly no bread.

  5. Anonymous says:

    WOW! So many people "duped" in this case I have to see this man, not interested in meeting him. I mean was he that charismatic because I don't want to believe that all those people were that stupid. 

    FOSTERS STAFF: seems like the buck stopped with you. Mr. Bryan would not have been able to get away with stealing so much if your staff were actually doing their jobs:

    1. Checking the actual goods received against the actual delivery note. 

    2. Checking the invoice received against the delivery note.

    3. Why was Mr. Bryan allowed to deliver "signed off" invoices to the Fosters accounts office himself that he could then alter as he pleased? 

    What kind of business you all running over there? 

    Thank goodness it took one manager to realize that something was really wrong if he was being asked to sign off on an invoice for $5000 for bread! Unfortunately by that time Mr. Bryan had duped you all out of hundreds of thousands of dollars! 

    I am curious, who pays?

    Fosters was obviously duped but they played a hand in the negligence allowing this man to dupe them. 

    From my understanding of the case, the bakery accounts office never saw most of the money he collected from Fosters because he had altered the invoice and took the "extra" money and gave the "correct" amount to the bakery. This just doesn't add up! Where is the original invoice issued, where did Mr. Bryan get another invoice to alter to present to Fosters for an inflated payment and what signed invoice for what amount did he give to the bakery? Were the deposits not checked against the invoices? 

    I don't even want to touch the JP issue. The amount of new JP's I see popping up all over the place, their signature begins to mean absolutely nothing to me because I know a lot of them were recommended by friends, politicians, pastors etc and most of them are clueless about what they are doing. It is all about status and prestige and having a title. JP Association should be a little more discriminatory about people they admit in their organization. This person should be removed as a JP. It is inexcusable to witness someone's signature who is not even present and simply take the word of someone else. 

    LESSON LEARNED: Follow protocol. Don't care if it is your mama, your grandfather, your son, your uncle or the little old lady up the road who couldn't harm a fly, In God We Trust, all others we check! 

    • THE SWEEPER says:

      08:31  Listen my friend.  This is not only happening at Fosters, it is happening all over Cayman Business places.  I saw it happening  at the big time Hotels, where different receipts are given, happening at many supermarkets and restaurants and shops and every where.  How these darn people get two receipt books is beyond me.  They got another one in their pocket.  Check your business.  Trust me when I tell you they are all foreign people doing this.  I know what I am talking about, But it is not my business to police your business.  So watch your foreign staff more closely.   Especially those who volunteer to work after hours, they are the one who are cleaning you out, but guess what you are thinking that they are being helpful and nice.  Yea !! stay there and believe that.

      • Anonymous says:

        You are probably right but I can only comment on the article I read, which only referred to Fosters. All the otherstuff I would have been simply speculating. 

        So my comments stand, in this case the buck stopped with Fosters!

  6. Anonymous says:

    Cayman's problem is a culture of being 'too nice', and its Caymanians who enforce this culture on each other….and get taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous people from different cultures and backgrounds who take full advantage.

    If a Caymanian had started to question and scrutinise this baker, his activities and invoices, that Caymanian would have been accused of having 'a bad attitude' or some similar derogratory description and been criticised and ostracised by his own Caymanians, first and foremost, while the swindler is laughing all the way to the bank.

    Why didn't Bernie catch this any sooner ?

    Because he's expected to be a nice, smiling, trusting, naive Caymanian, which he most certainly is…..and this is the result.

    If people only knew the amount of similar scams and racketts going on in Cayman !

    • DRIVER DONT STOP AT ALL says:

      07:43  you are so correct.  EVERY WORD YOU SAY IS THE TRUTH.  Caymanians so hell bent against their own, But they do not know they are the laughing stock of the public,   Yes they employ these foreign people because they say yes maam and yes sir, and because they have a different accent, once it is not Caymanian.

      To tell you the truth I am really it is happening to them because these business people are looking for slaves to drive and in so doing they are getting scammed, fleeced, double dipped and all of it.  If a Caymanian is given a job they stand over their heads with a sledge hammer, and watching what time they go bathroom and what time they eat, but the foreign person they put incharge.  So take what you all are getting.

  7. Anonymous says:

    This is a story bubbling over with stupid people. A JP was "conned" into witnessing the signature of someone who was not present??? Really??? I hope the JP is no longer a JP. Numerous accountants at Fosters were "conned" into paying these hyperinflated invoices? Really??? I hope they have all been dismissed. This whole caper is just so utterly ridiculous that you couldn't make this up. Surely, Foster's wasn't the only supermarket duped by this "con artist"? Or are the others just too embarrassed at their stupidity to press charges?

    • Anonymous says:

      I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds this story dubious.  I don't believe for one second that nobody else was involved.  As for the JP, that should be taken away.  

      • Lewis says:

        Will Bryan get Rolled Over?

        • Anonymous says:

          By now he probably has status, investments, house and a family here.  How can we rescind his status when he is a Caymanian??  Criminals are never removed from these Islands, they have more rights that and indignenous Caymanian.  Get the coconut husk boat ready.

        • Anonymous says:

          No need to roll him over. Apparently he's self-rising.

  8. Anonymous says:

    Poor Bernie. Whatever happened to his floating bar at Stingray city? XXXXX

  9. Anonymous says:

     Dave Bryan should have been in jail long long time.  I did not like his breads or buns and his fruit cake was missing plenty of the fruits. He was ab lousy Baker. 

  10. The little lady up the road says:

    Bryan is a handsome tall man.  He speaks very well and comes across as a very sincere person. I laoned him $600.00 too and I never got it back.  Although I am old and comfortable, I understood his troubling tales and fell for the con. But I knew something was terribly wrong when he tried to tell me bad things about Bernie.  I told him, 'not that decent young man Bernie'.  I never saw him again after that.  May his soul rot in Northward.

    • DRIVER DONT STOP AT ALL says:

      Which tall dark and handsome man  WHO IS NOT OUT TO CON? SLICK, SINCERE CON ARTIST.

      Sweet mouth,  sugar teeth, and honey tongue.  Dont believe a word they say.  Cayman is full with them.  Poor Caymanian business people, I feel sorry for you all trusting them.  I see some of them working in welding shops and machine shops at night, making more money than their boss.  I saw a man make 5,000.00 in one week working at his work place in the night.  His Boss is a fool and let him have the key to open up in the mornings.  So the worker waits until 10. pm at nights when he knows the boss is getting ready for bed, gives him a call sometimes to make sure he is 30 miles away from Town, then he begins work until 4 5 in the morning.

      Cleans up, goes home and is back to work 8 am feeling tired and boss thinks he is catching a flu.:)    Not my business to tell Boss, he gave him the key, so take what he gets.  Bosses should get their asses up in the morning and open their own place, and not give their employee keys.  They are getting cleaned out.

      Take for instance food which is taken off shelves by supermarkets.  How man of them are allowing the public to have a few items for one dollar?  They prefer to throw it in the garbage.

      Fast food chicken and other foods.  When it is closing time and you go and ask for a piece of the chicken.  They tell you  NO, NEED PUT IN GARBAGE 🙂 GO AROUND THE CORNER AND WAIT A WHILE AND YOU WILL SEE THEIR FRIENDS AND FAMILY COMing.  They sit and wait inside or outside in their cars, soon as the chicken is taken out back they drive around or walk, pick it up put it in their cars and gone.

      Oh, you wicked businesses in Cayman, you just deserve to get fleeced, conned, robbed and everything else,

      Some nationalities would throw the coffee in containers for them friends and do not give an poor sould who cannot afford to buy a cup.

       

  11. Anonymous says:

    To be honest, I think we should toast someone who was bred to use their loaf with such ingenuity, sick of feeding off crumbs, got himself off the breadline, and got on a roll with this scheme to earn himself a decent crust.

  12. JTB says:

    How on Earth is this story about foreigners and expats?

    • Stiffed-Necked Fool says:

      Someelse HAS TO BE charged. There is no way that with the large amount involved that someone else did not know what was taking place – someone somewhere!

      • Tick and vouch says:

        Very odd indeed. When goods are delivered a delivery note accompanies the goods and the purchasing department checks the note with the order. Following that the note is checked with the invoice. Finally the invoices are reconciled with the monthly statement and if that is found to be correct payment is made. Sound simple? Well it is and as an auditor in the sixties that is how it worked. Something here does not pass the sniff test.

    • Anonymous says:

      I suggest you read the story again if it has eluded you.  

    • Anonymous says:

      Where in this story did you see any reference to foreigners and expats? I suggest you take a second read. That being so, the fact remains that this man is a foreigner and a thief who stole a whole lot of money from Caymanian companies and by other comments on here perhaps he also stole from trusting individuals.

  13. Homer J. Ebanks says:

    Doh!

  14. UDP Supporter says:

    Everyday I read these stories of our Caymanian people getting into criminal activities and I long for the days without any expats when we were just a Christian community without the godless and scornful ways of these foreignors! We need to repent and get back to our Biblical values before it is too late!

    • Anonymous says:

      Your best post yet.  Hilarious stuff.  Keep 'em coming!

       

    • Caymanian11 says:

      Oh grow up.  You seriously think its the ex-pats' fault that Caymanians are breaking the law? Oh dear.  The fault lies squarely at the foot of parents who neither know or care where their kids are or what they are doing.  People keep pushing kids out without the money or inclination to raise them properly.  Thats the problem.  Many ex-pats are christians too you know!  I blame the parents and the US television programs which glorify violence and crime.  GET REAL! 

    • Anonymous says:

      People like you are what gives Caymanians a bad name – are you seriously stupid enough to think that its foreigners fault?  It seems so.  No doubt you have kids who have committed crimes and need someone else to blame but yourself?

    • Cheese Face says:

      You need to go into a padded cell!

    • Anonymous says:

      Folks – UDP Supporter is clearly writing in jest as not even the most steadfast Mac supporter could possibly write such consistently ludicrous material. The ability to construct something resembling a sentence, the absence of demands for appliances and the infrequency of spelling errors are also clues that this person is unlikely to be one of the 3 remaining UDP supporters.

    • Anonymous says:

      The just released Cayman census shows 23,521 non-Caymanian persons belong to one or another religious denominations.  Not exactly a godless bunch, eh?  Perhaps if YOU were in church more often you might meet some of them. 

       

      • Anonymous says:

        Too many convienient Christians, evading work and spreading false prophecy.

    • Dreadlock Holmes says:

      UDP supporter:  It's really hard to know where to start with your comment. Like everyone else, I think you were just joking.       I hope.  God forbid it wasn't meant as a joke.

    • Anonymous says:

      Sorry but, the whole story started by fronting. A 100% Cayman activity and, growing every day. The government has no desire to stop it for obvious reasons. Over 1/2 the dive businesses were fronted until the status grat give-away. Most of the gardening operations are fronted.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Who is Bryan? Where is his picture?

    • Anonymous says:

      He’s a thief, not a movie star. He does con jobs, not ‘pictures’
      That said, have you checked the movie listings?

  16. Anonymous says:

    Not the first time a JP has endorsed illegal acts:

    Carson Ebanks and SPIT rings a bell, but no enforcement no explanation no accountability

    • Anonymous says:

      I don't think there is any evidence to support the very serious charge that a JP "endorsed illegal acts". In this case I think it is fair to say that the JP acted improperly in purporting to witness a signature that he did not in fact witness. In Mr. Ebanks's case he allowed himself to be intimidated by Operation Tempura officers into signing a warrant when he ought to have asked more questions and taken legal advice.

      Of course you would prefer to focus on the lesser culpability of any Caymanians involved than on the greater culpability of the expats.   

      • noname says:

        If he is intimidated, he shouldn't be a JP.  JP should have scruples and above reproach.  He should have refused.  I would rather not be a JP than agree towitness something that I didn't witness.

  17. Serious says:

    I hope he is given a fine of what he stole.  Also a warning to all you Business people Foreign and Caymanians, You had better watch your business more closely.  Foreigners are taking you to the cleanersin every way, from gardening  shops to Mank managers.   Bars and supermarkets, restaurants construction, and the list could go on.  t is not Caymanians becaue they dont have these jobs.

    • Anonymous says:

      Are you "Serious"?  Seriously……

    • Anonymous says:

      Foreigners are not eligible for loans from CIDB;  so there goes your not-Caymanian thesis/maligned tangent.  It is also customary to request surrender the proceeds of crime (or whatever remainder) once caught plus additional penalties.  Thanks for the tip on the "Manks".  

       

       

       

      • Anonymous says:

        Thats right, foreigners are not eligible for loans from CIDB and hence the reason this crook forged his Caymanian partner's signature to do so!  This should be a lesson to other Caymanians who are quick to be "silent" partners.

        • Anonymous says:

          Ah, but the rewards are so great that one can easily overlook the occasional bread theif.

      • oH mY says:

        Walking dictionary, you are so very welcome for the "MANKS"

  18. Anonymous says:

    More of the story needs to be told…

  19. Fedup says:

    The JP who witnessed the signature of someone absent needs to be removed as such. Such behaviour in any legal matter is indefensible. Perhaps he/she should be named – of course they will remain a JP but at least they could be publicly embarrassed for this act.

     

    • Anonymous says:

      It could only be a caymmanian.  God help us.  Why are we so naive, that we allow smart axxes to get it over us all the time.

      • Anonymous says:

        Yes, indeed. Message to all Caymanians : Start using your loaves. There are some very bad people out there, so don't dart to any assumptions about folks, and don't get taken for a walk down the mulberry path, no matter how nice the park is. Look beyond the nice, lovely picture. And don't get taken again.

    • Anonymous says:

      Fedup I couldn't agree with you more! Many of these so called JPs need to be struck from the register for their behaviour.

    • Anonymous says:

      It would be good for their business