SASCHA WIL­SON

Al­most two months af­ter po­lice seized more than $28 mil­lion from Pas­tor Vin­worth Day­al, in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Unit (FIU) are still look­ing in­to how the pas­tor got his mon­ey De­tec­tives are tightlipped about the de­tails, but Guardian Me­dia was told that sev­er­al peo­ple have been in­ter­viewed and state­ments record­ed.

Alarm bells went off when Day­al went to Cen­tral Bank on De­cem­ber 31, 2019, the fi­nal day the old cot­ton $100 bills were valid, to ex­change close to $29 mil­lion of them for the new poly­mer notes. The po­lice were con­tact­ed af­ter he could not pro­vide prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion for how he ac­quired the mon­ey.

Pas­tor Day­al, who heads the Third Ex­o­dus As­sem­bly Church in Long­denville, told po­lice the mon­ey came from tithes col­lect­ed over the past 19 years.

The po­lice con­duct­ed raids at the church and the Ocean Av­enue, Gulf View, La Ro­maine home of the pas­tor's close rel­a­tives. They seized more than $2 mil­lion at the church and doc­u­ments from the home. Fol­low­ing this, in­ves­ti­ga­tors were grant­ed a de­ten­tion or­der by the court to seize the pas­tor’s mon­ey pend­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, de­ten­tion or­ders al­low the po­lice to hold mon­ey for a pe­ri­od not ex­ceed­ing three months. The law pro­vides for the court to grant fur­ther de­ten­tion of the mon­ey, but the to­tal pe­ri­od of de­ten­tion can­not ex­ceed two years. Day­al al­so has the op­tion of pe­ti­tion­ing the court for his mon­ey to be re­leased.