FOR the past three weeks Shymdeo Gosine has been having an uneasy time after receiving death threats.

Gosine, the managing director of Doc's Engineering Group of Companies, said a menacing phone call he received is the cause of this.

The threats have left his family and employees in a state of paranoia.

Speaking to TV6 News last night, he said a football coach contacted him and asked if he could give his (Gosine's) number to an ex-Trinidad and Tobago footballer who wanted to discuss some business.

Fidgeting uneasily in his seat at Express House, Independence Square, Port of Spain, Gosine said he saw no harm in giving his number.

When the ex-footballer called moments later, "he started to tell me that my family and I was in danger and he knows a man that can provide security for our protection, and then I heard a click and another man joined the conversation telling me he related to (name called) and that he can ensure my safety," claimed Gosine.

"They want me to pay them to provide myself with security. Could you imagine I paying a condemned murderer to provide me with security?" scoffed Gosine.

The Central businessman said he brushed off further phone calls by the convicted murderer to provide security, after realising it was an extortion ploy.

But the death threats didn't stop there. In fact they intensified as calls were made from inside the prison walls to several of his employees, he claimed.

He recounted that a supervisor who had worked for his company decided to leave last week.

"This gentleman left the job because of fear for his life and the second person that they called is my draughtsman and they threatened him."

Gosine recounted that only yesterday, men in a white B-13 Nissan car without number plates followed his draughtsman to his Central home and told him "don't go back to that job because there would be bloodshed there very soon".

Fearing for his life, family and employees, Gosine lodged a report about the death threats at Cunupia Police Station and also spoke to officers in the Anti-Kidnapping Squad and gave the phone number that begins with 393.

He also spoke with members of the Prisons Service Association and the Ministry of National Security, but no help has been forthcoming.

Gosine said he got a surprising response from a senior officer who told him they've been monitoring similar cases.

"An inspector told me they allow this to happen so they can listen in to the people's conversation. So I asked him, 'Am I going to be a statistic so you could solve the crime when you listen to who put out a hit on me and you going to wait for it to happen?' "