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Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Cops ask vic­tims to come for­ward as...

Clinic owner held in fraud probe

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20160606

The own­er of a pop­u­lar weight loss clin­ic in T&T was de­tained by po­lice yes­ter­day in con­nec­tion with a fraud in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The T&T Guardian was told that the 40-year-old doc­tor was at her St James clin­ic when she was vis­it­ed by the of­fi­cers.

She was told of the al­le­ga­tions made against her, warned that they were deemed of a se­ri­ous na­ture and then hand­cuffed and tak­en to the Fraud Squad Unit's of­fices at the cor­ner of Park and Rich­mond Streets in Port-of-Spain.

Ac­cord­ing to a source at the Fraud Squad Unit, of­fi­cers re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from a pa­tient who claimed that over $25,000 in cash and cheques was paid to the doc­tor for a li­po­suc­tion pro­ce­dure. How­ev­er, the pa­tient al­leged the pro­ce­dure was nev­er done and the pa­tient nev­er got a re­fund. The source added that there were four oth­er sim­i­lar cas­es filed against the clin­ic that were pre­vi­ous­ly filed.

In a state­ment last evening, man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, Ellen Lewis, con­firmed the doc­tor was de­tained yes­ter­day morn­ing by of­fi­cers of the Fraud Squad in con­nec­tion with the fraud al­le­ga­tions that were re­port­ed to them. Specif­i­cal­ly, Lewis said the al­le­ga­tions sur­round al­leged­ly ten­der­ing fraud­u­lent cheques and re­ceiv­ing monies for ser­vices not ren­dered.

But a close friend of the doc­tor, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, yes­ter­day told the T&T Guardian that there was the be­lief among staff that there is a hid­den agen­da in the case.

"We be­lieve that be­cause she is be­com­ing pop­u­lar and ex­pand­ing her busi­ness that there are peo­ple who are just en­vi­ous and want to see her and her busi­ness go down. Over the years there have been sev­er­al al­le­ga­tions made against her, but they have all proven ei­ther ac­ci­den­tal or just mis­chie­vous work," the friend said.

"In the past, the doc­tor had dis­grun­tled work­ers who at­tempt­ed to re­port her and bring her down but they failed in the end. We stand by her as she al­so has many, many suc­cess­ful sto­ries and pa­tients, who I am sure will come out in her de­fence."

Lewis said the head of the Fraud Squad is al­so ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have any in­for­ma­tion or al­le­ga­tions against the own­er to come for­ward and as­sist them or con­tact the Fraud Squad of­fice im­me­di­ate­ly.

In 2013, health au­thor­i­ties in Bar­ba­dos, where the com­pa­ny al­so has a branch, in­ves­ti­gat­ed its op­er­a­tions af­ter ac­tion was tak­en against its fran­chise by the Bar­ba­dos Po­lice and Bar­ba­dos Drug Ser­vice. A raid on the clin­ic was done and an undis­closed amount of al­leged­ly ques­tion­able drugs were seized. It was al­so dis­cov­ered that the clin­ic was not reg­is­tered with the Bar­ba­dos Med­ical Coun­cil.

Last month, the T&T arm of the clin­ic was the re­cip­i­ent of an in­ter­na­tion­al award for qual­i­ty.


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