Ex-UCCI president arrested in Switzerland

Hassan Iftikar Syed, 47, faces extradition to the Cayman Islands from Switzerland after he was arrested there in November, the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service said Thursday.  

Syed remains detained in Switzerland, RCIPS officers confirmed. They explained the reason for the delay in reporting the arrest had to do with “ongoing processes” related to the planned extradition.  

Syed is the former president of the University College of the Cayman Islands who suddenly left the territory in 2008 claiming to be suffering from a severe illness.  

It was revealed later in the year that Syed left after the release of a financial audit to the UCCI board in April 2008 that found “unsubstantiated financial transactions for the office of the president.”  

The RCIPS sought Syed’s arrest for years in connection with a number of offenses including theft, obtaining money transfer by deception and obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. International arrest warrants were issued through Interpol several years ago. Syed was charged in absentia in April 2012. 

According to a statement from police: “The RCIPS is currently liaising with the [Director of Public Prosecutions] and the Swiss authorities in an effort to secure Syed’s extradition to the Cayman Islands as expeditiously as possible.  

“It should be noted that extradition can be a lengthy and complicated process, as such, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”  

Syed was last known to be in Canada, which has no formal extradition arrangement with the Cayman Islands. It was unclear at press time what led the former UCCI president to Europe.  

Cayman has an extradition agreement, through the U.K., with Switzerland. In general, authorities of a foreign state must satisfy themselves of the seriousness and substantiation of the allegations against the person being extradited, as well as assure themselves the suspect will be treated fairly and humanely by the courts and local authorities.  

‘Anomalies’ revealed 

The issue of the UCCI thefts first came to the public’s attention when, during a Legislative Assembly Finance Committee meeting in June 2008, then-Opposition Leader McKeeva Bush asked if there had been any misappropriations of large sums of money from the school. 

Then-Minister of Education Alden McLaughlin admitted preliminary findings by the auditor general’s office found “anomalies and irregularities with respect to the operations of the president of the college.” 

Deputy Auditor General Garnet Harrison also confirmed at the time that the UCCI audit had begun well in advance of Syed’s resignation from the school in May 2008. 

It later emerged that Syed had allegedly charged more than US$50,000 in jewelry on university-issued credit cards.  

According to the audit completed in April 2008 by then-Auditor General Dan Duguay, in addition to jewelry purchases, Syed allegedly used his UCCI credit cards to pay for thousands of dollars worth of goods at department stores in Toronto and London, for furniture, spa treatments and even for a week-long stay at a villa in France that he purchased at a Rotary Club auction in May 2007. 

Mr. Duguay’s report quantified the amount of credit card transactions that were “seemingly inconsistent with the operational activities of the UCCI.” 

The audit stated: ”Based on our preliminary review, an estimated US$294,000 of credit card transactions could not be adequately substantiated as UCCI’s expenditure.” 

Some of the unsubstantiated credit card charges were subsequently identified as personal expenses to Syed and deducted from his salary, school officials said. It was never made precisely clear how much money the former president owed his employer.  

Deductions 

During a 16-month period between December 2006 and March 2008, the UCCI accounts department deducted US$119,390.18 from Syed’s salary. During the time, Syed’s salary was US$13,412 per month – US$160,944 per year – although it appeared to auditors that he received a CI$3,466 bonus in December 2006. 

The audit office’s analysis indicated that pages missing from the credit card statements originally submitted to them by UCCI had in excess of US$119,000 worth of transactions from the former president’s credit cards. 

The Legislative Assembly’s Finance Committee was told in June 2008 that Syed had received at least one salary advance without the approval of the UCCI board of governors. 

It was later revealed in the Legislative Assembly Finance Committee that Mr. Duguay’s report to the UCCI board showed Syed was given a salary advance of $71,472 on Jan. 17, 2008. The advance was to be repaid by deducting $3,000 per month from Syed’s salary and that deduction commenced in February 2008. 

Consultancy fees 

The auditor general’s report also details CI$51,750 in consultancy fees Syed charged for services rendered to the Civil Service Collage. 

Syed did not receive the full amount of his fees in cash for consultancy services because UCCI deducted from his invoice the amount of $42,914, which it had identified as personal expenses incurred in September and October 2007. Those personal expenses included CI$22,870 in bank drafts Syed ordered, CI$5,479 in credit card expenses, plus CI$14,564 in rent. 

In addition to charging the Civil Service College a CI$7,500 consultancy fee to set up the ANGEL online learning system, Syed submitted invoices for reimbursement of US$288,484 he purportedly paid for the computer hardware to support the system. 

In reconciling the invoices and reimbursements, the auditor general’s report stated it appeared the supplying company was overpaid for the system and that it was awaiting an explanation about the overpayment. 

Inflated student numbers 

It later emerged that Syed apparently had misled the board of governors and the Ministry of Education into thinking more students were attending the university than actually existed. 

Mr. McLaughlin, in a statement to the House during November 2007, said enrollment figures at UCCI had surpassed 3,600 students at the start of the 2007/08 school year. 

However, during Finance Committee, then-acting UCCI President Brian Chapell said 1,377 unique students registered at the university for the fall 2007 semester and 1,331 unique students registered for the spring 2008 semester. 

“What Hassan was doing was reporting registrations as students,” Mr. McLaughlin told the Caymanian Compass at the time. “I am absolutely satisfied we were deliberately misled, especially considering what else has come to light.” 

Registrations are the number of classes for which students register. Mr. Chapell said that if a student registered for four classes, that would count as four registrations. 

No PhD 

At the same Finance Committee meeting, Mr. Chapell also reported there was nothing in Syed’s file that demonstrated he had a doctorate degree although he had been passing himself off as being so qualified.  

Former UCCI President Sam Basdeo said when he recruited Syed as a teacher from Toronto, he only held a master’s degree and no teacher’s certification. Syed told Mr. Basdeo that he was seeking his doctorate from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. 

Mr. Basdeo told the Compass at the time that Syed had informed him he had successfully obtained his doctorate, but Mr. Basdeo never saw a diploma or certificate to substantiate the claim.  

The University of Victoria told the Compass it had not awarded anyone with the name Hassan Syed with a doctorate degree.