SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith says at least three se­nior of­fi­cers from the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion were in­volved in the re­turn of over $22 mil­lion to the Drugs Sou Sou (DSS) pyra­mid scheme.

In an in­ter­view with CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said he is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion by both the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP.)

“We found out that in­ves­ti­ga­tors ap­point­ed were part of the sou sou. I am mon­i­tor­ing this care­ful­ly, I am go­ing to li­aise close­ly with the PCA and the DPP on this mat­ter,” Grif­fith said.

“I could have turned a blind eye, no­body would have known and every­body would have been hap­py but that is not how I have been cut.

This is a se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion, $22 mil­lion in cash, in the roof, in box­es, in all kinds of place. We didn’t even check, sup­pose half of it is coun­ter­feit? You don’t just give back mon­ey like that to peo­ple.”

The saga of the DSS seizure be­gan on Tues­day, when of­fi­cers of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Bu­reau (FIB) and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) shut down the home of a La Hor­quet­ta mon­ey lender, ar­rest­ed nine peo­ple and seized box­es and garbage bags filled with cash.

The mon­ey and the nine peo­ple were tak­en to the La Hor­quet­ta Po­lice Sta­tion on Tues­day evening. But in the ear­ly hours of Wednes­day morn­ing, all nine peo­ple, in­clud­ing a sol­dier, were re­leased with­out charge and the $22,157,000 in cash was re­turned to them.

Grif­fith was caught un­aware, as he was heard on a lo­cal ra­dio sta­tion hours af­ter the sus­pects were re­leased and mon­ey re­turned say­ing the seized cash was still be­ing count­ed.

By noon on Wednes­day, the TTPS is­sued a re­lease say­ing that Grif­fith, his Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers and the FIB were un­aware the mon­ey had been re­leased and none of them had au­tho­rised it.

At 2 pm on Wednes­day, SORT and FIB of­fi­cers were back at the mon­ey lender’s La Hor­quet­ta home. Al­though they blocked off the road­way and en­tered the man’s prop­er­ty, no fur­ther search or seizure was done.

Af­ter an hour and a half, the heav­i­ly armed con­tin­gency packed up and left the area.

There were re­ports yes­ter­day that po­lice had again re­turned to the man’s home.

Guardian Me­dia had met the man short­ly be­fore po­lice ar­rived again on Wednes­day but he de­clined to com­ment.

He has re­tained a team of lawyers, led by se­nior coun­sel Sophia Chote to rep­re­sent him.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day on the Morn­ing Brew, Grif­fith said there are mul­ti­ple arms of law en­force­ment in­volved in the DSS op­er­a­tion. He de­scribed it as a ma­jor cov­er-up.

Grif­fith said there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the mon­ey can be seized again, as he said there has been no ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the source of the $22 mil­lion.

“But at this time, be­cause of what was done, it will be dif­fi­cult for us to find that in­di­vid­ual and find that $22 mil­lion this time around,” he said.