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Monday, July 28, 2025

3 La Horquetta station cops returned DSS $22m

by

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD
1766 days ago
20200926
An attorney shows his ID to Special Operations Response Team officers as he approaches the Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta apartment where the Drugs Sou Sou operates from after police returned to the area on Wednesday.

An attorney shows his ID to Special Operations Response Team officers as he approaches the Kathleen Warner Drive, La Horquetta apartment where the Drugs Sou Sou operates from after police returned to the area on Wednesday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

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.


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