Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Cruise ship pas­sen­gers are call­ing on Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs to put mea­sures in place to en­sure that trav­el agent Vicky Boodram does not leave T&T's shores with­out re­pay­ing some $18 mil­lion owed to them. Many of the an­gry pas­sen­gers gath­ered out­side Boodram's of­fices at Dum­fries Road, La Ro­maine, for a fourth con­sec­u­tive day yes­ter­day, hop­ing to see Boodram. The of­fice, how­ev­er, re­mained locked and there was no one avail­able to an­swer con­cerns.

For the sec­ond day, Boodram failed to an­swer calls and she did not re­spond to voice mes­sages.

Cori Layne, a pas­sen­ger, said the po­lice had failed to act swift­ly in the mat­ter. "I went to make a re­port at the San Fer­nan­do CID and they told me this is a mat­ter for the Fraud Squad and when I went to that de­part­ment, they told me that they have to build a case and that I could take civ­il ac­tion," Layne said.

He said Boodram could eas­i­ly mi­grate to an­oth­er coun­try and none of the pas­sen­gers would ever get back their mon­ey.

John Ewan, of Pe­nal, ques­tioned why the po­lice were drag­ging their feet on the mat­ter. "The po­lice said that we can take civ­il ac­tion, but how many peo­ple will do this?" he said. "There is no jus­tice in this coun­try... It's been three weeks now I am try­ing to get back my mon­ey and still we are see­ing no ac­tion from the po­lice." Around noon yes­ter­day, one of Boodram's rel­a­tives said she was be­ing ques­tioned at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion, but head of South­ern Di­vi­sion ACP Fitzroy Fred­er­ick said this was not true. Fred­er­ick said he was un­cer­tain whether Fraud Squad was in­ves­ti­gat­ing the is­sue and di­rect­ed queries there.

Head of the Fraud Squad, act­ing Se­nior Supt Castil­lio, was not in of­fice and his sub­or­di­nate ASP Daniel said he was not at lib­er­ty to say whether any re­ports were made at the de­part­ment. Cpl King from the Of­fice of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er al­so could not pro­vide in­for­ma­tion. He was re­luc­tant to trans­fer this re­porter to the Com­mis­sion­er's pri­vate line and di­rect­ed queries to the ser­vice's cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Sharon Lee As­sang. Lee As­sang, how­ev­er, did not an­swer the phone or re­spond to voice mes­sages. Boodram, pres­i­dent of Boodram's Trav­el and Ship Ahoy, said in an ear­li­er in­ter­view that she would re­pay all pas­sen­gers by March.

The trav­el agent is al­so fac­ing a law­suit from renowned cruise ship com­pa­ny Car­ni­val Cor­po­ra­tion.

The com­pa­ny is claim­ing sev­en counts of fraud and breach of con­tract, as well as trade­mark in­fringe­ment. The ac­tion was filed in a South­ern Flori­da court by law firm Rivero Mestre on Jan­u­ary 24, seek­ing dam­ages for loss of prof­it, le­gal costs and pre-judg­ment in­ter­ests. Boodram booked two cruis­es with Car­ni­val which were sched­uled for April and Au­gust, but both were sub­se­quent­ly can­celled af­ter the com­pa­ny ac­cused Boodram of us­ing frad­u­lent let­ters of cred­it to ac­quire the con­tract.