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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Businessmen give details about

cheques in Hackshaw's $2m probe

by

Guardian Media
1872 days ago
20200530

Cleared by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice of wrong­do­ing in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­leged sus­pi­cious bank­ing trans­ac­tions, ACP Ir­win Hack­shaw says he feels "some­what vin­di­cat­ed and re­lieved."

"It was ful­fill­ing. It brought clo­sure to un­war­rant­ed and friv­o­lous at­tacks on me and my char­ac­ter and I knew one day the re­sults would have proven that I am not cul­pa­ble or guilty of any crime. All I was guilty of was as­sist­ing and treat­ing with po­lice of­fi­cers when there are func­tions and keep­ing prop­er func­tions with them," Hack­shaw told Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day.

Hack­shaw, speak­ing about the clo­sure of the of­fi­cial TTPS in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the al­leged $2 mil­lion trans­ac­tion, said he had con­fi­dence in the sys­tem.

How­ev­er, he said he was mind­ful that the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) was still con­duct­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tion and would not make any pro­nounce­ment on that mat­ter.

The PCA said up­on its in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion and clo­sure of the probe, it will make rec­om­men­da­tions "to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice on the con­duct of of­fi­cers in pri­vate work-re­lat­ed busi­ness whilst be­ing em­ployed as a po­lice of­fi­cer and al­so make rec­om­men­da­tions on how po­lice col­lect do­na­tions from the pub­lic for al­leged po­lice events."

Hack­shaw spoke af­ter Guardian broke the sto­ry about him be­ing cleared of wrong­do­ing on Thurs­day, fol­lowed by the of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment on that same day by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith at the TTPS's me­dia brief­ing.

The Ex­press news­pa­per in March re­port­ed that Hack­shaw had been flagged at three fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions for sus­pi­cious trans­ac­tions amount­ing to $2 mil­lion. The re­port al­so in­di­cat­ed that the banks re­port­ed the trans­ac­tions to the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (FIU) of T&T fol­low­ing de­posits in­to over 15 Roy­al Bank per­son­al ac­counts be­long­ing to Hack­shaw dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2014-2019.

ACP Win­ston Nurse of Port-of-Spain and West­ern Di­vi­sion was lat­er man­dat­ed to con­duct an in­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter with the help of cor­po­rals Ram­s­ingh and Ma­haraj of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB). As part of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion Nurse had to re­view doc­u­ments from the FIU ob­tained by Supt De­osaran of the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Branch (FIB) and then su­per­in­ten­dent of the Fraud Squad To­taram Dook­ie.

In the fi­nal re­port which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained, Nurse said "The re­mit of my team was to pro­vide an­swers as to whether these al­leged pay­ments amount­ed to any crim­i­nal of­fence."

BUSI­NESS­MEN GIVE A BREAK­DOWN OF CHEQUES

Nurse said Sgt Samuel of the Fraud Squad ob­tained and ex­e­cut­ed pro­duc­tion or­ders on five fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions–Sco­tia­bank, Roy­al Bank, Po­lice Cred­it Union, Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and FCB.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so ob­tained in­for­ma­tion from the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al about sev­er­al com­pa­nies which al­leged­ly made pay­ments by cheques.

The re­port stat­ed that the po­lice in­ter­viewed the busi­ness­men who al­leged­ly gave cheques to Hack­shaw–Dami­an Liang, Mi­tra Dhara­mas­ingh, Yan Ping Chen, Phillip Buxo, David Jaikissoon, Naeem Ali of NA­MAL­CO Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Lim­it­ed and Moti­lal Ramhit and Sons.

Most of the busi­ness­men were able to give a de­tailed break­down of the cheques is­sued to Hack­shaw.

*In Liang's case, he made a con­tri­bu­tion of $12,500 for po­lice func­tions, and the oth­er cheque for $6,500 was for con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices pro­vid­ed by Hack­shaw in 2017.

*Dharam­s­ingh said he do­nat­ed $40,000 for po­lice func­tions, while an ad­di­tion­al $17,000 was paid to Hack­shaw in two cheques for con­sul­tan­cy work in 2017.

*Ping Chen said he wrote one cheque for the sum of $10,000 for po­lice events to Hack­shaw in 2017.

*Jaikissoon said he is­sued four cheques in 2017 for a to­tal of $105,000 and three were for po­lice events. The fourth cheque was a $25,000 pay­ment to Hack­shaw for se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices af­ter they made an oral con­tract.

*Ali al­so told po­lice he paid out a sim­i­lar sum of $105,000 in cheques for four po­lice func­tions and one cheque for con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices for Hack­shaw's broth­er Ken­wyn, who is af­fil­i­at­ed with the con­sul­tan­cy com­pa­ny KHBC. These pay­ments were made dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2016-2018.

*Po­lice al­so in­ter­viewed fam­i­ly mem­bers of de­ceased Prem­c­hand Ramhit, who ac­knowl­edged that the busi­ness­man had made a pay­ment of $10,000 (cheque # 27944), ac­cord­ing to the no­ta­tion at­tached to the cheque, for a po­lice func­tion be­fore his pass­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2017.

Nan­da Ramhit, who had co-signed the cheque, was al­so in­ter­viewed by po­lice, but could not say what was the pur­pose of the do­na­tion. His of­fice man­ag­er Kr­ishen­s­hand Siew­nar­ine was al­so un­aware.

*Buxo, who gave a one-off do­na­tion of $50,000 via an RBL cheque, was not in­ter­viewed by the po­lice.

Asked about the so­lic­it­ing of funds and do­na­tions for the po­lice ser­vice, Hack­shaw said that po­lice have been so­lic­it­ing funds for a long time for events. "From the com­man­ders in the sta­tion go right up to the se­nior lev­el, we try to raise funds for func­tions, sports events and even gath­er­ings we have for re­tirees. The po­lice ser­vice can­not sup­ply funds for all these events so that is why we look for le­gal cor­po­rate cit­i­zens."

SEV­ER­AL AC­COUNTS

Nurse con­clud­ed that Hack­shaw did not have 15 ac­counts in one bank. He not­ed, "What our in­ves­ti­ga­tion found is that Mr Hack­shaw al­though he had sev­er­al ac­counts, all were not with the same bank. They were with var­i­ous banks and cred­it unions. We can safe­ly dis­miss any li­a­bil­i­ty con­tem­plat­ed or oth­er­wise in re­la­tion to Mr Hack­shaw be­ing the hold­er of 15 bank ac­counts."

In­ves­ti­ga­tors dis­cov­ered that Hack­shaw had a salary ac­count at Roy­al Bank, an ac­count at Sco­tia­bank, two Mas­ter­card ac­counts, one cred­it card ac­count, two Roytrin hold­er ac­counts, and one oth­er ac­count. At the Po­lice Ser­vice Cred­it Union he had five ac­counts.

Nurse stat­ed in the re­port that they thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed the is­sues list­ed be­low:

1. Was DCP Hack­shaw per­mit­ted by the CoP to en­gage in pri­vate em­ploy­ment for re­mu­ner­a­tion?

2. If he did en­gage in pri­vate work, did he re­mit to the Board of In­land Rev­enue de­part­ment the ap­pro­pri­ate tax­es giv­en the fact that he is em­ployed by the State?

3. Did DCP Hack­shaw get per­mis­sion to re­ceive do­na­tions from cor­po­rate T&T or any­one else?

4. Does the po­lice ser­vice have a pol­i­cy of so­lic­it­ing do­na­tions for po­lice events from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice?

5. Whether monies re­ceived by DCP Hack­shaw for po­lice events were ap­plied ap­pro­pri­ate­ly to these events?

PER­MIS­SION GRANT­ED?

On the first three ques­tions, Nurse said he ob­tained let­ters from present CoP Gary Grif­fith and for­mer com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams, as well as Harold Phillip who act­ed for both Williams and Grif­fith when they were out of the coun­try.

Nurse said that let­ters ob­tained in April this year in­di­cat­ed that when Grif­fith came in­to of­fice in Au­gust 2018 he had per­mit­ted Hack­shaw to en­gage in pri­vate work and so­lic­it do­na­tions for po­lice events. Williams in a let­ter to Nurse de­nied that he had giv­en Hack­shaw per­mis­sion to do any type of work oth­er than a po­lice of­fi­cer. Williams al­so de­nied that he had been told by Hack­shaw that he had shares in any com­pa­ny. Phillip, in his let­ter, al­so stat­ed the same.

Nurse said in a state­ment giv­en to po­lice on May 22 Hack­shaw claimed that Williams had giv­en him per­mis­sion to con­duct pri­vate work and that Grif­fith al­so did the same when he lat­er be­came CoP.

Nurse not­ed, "Fur­ther and fi­nal­ly, the is­sue of Mr Hack­shaw re­ceiv­ing or not re­ceiv­ing per­mis­sion to per­form pri­vate work as a po­lice of­fi­cer is sub­mit­ted not with­in the scope of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion and maybe the mat­ter of an­oth­er type of in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

Nurse said that nei­ther Williams nor Phillip could say whether there was a set pol­i­cy re­lat­ed to the ac­cep­tance or so­lic­i­ta­tion of do­na­tions and con­tri­bu­tions from cor­po­rate or pri­vate cit­i­zens for po­lice events. Nurse in­di­cat­ed in the re­port that "while the po­lice reg­u­la­tions speak about po­lice of­fi­cers in their pri­vate ca­pac­i­ty re­ceiv­ing gifts and re­wards, it is very silent on the is­sue of con­tri­bu­tion for po­lice events."

Nurse said he sought guid­ance from re­tired ACP An­n­marie Allen-Daly on this mat­ter and she said that in prin­ci­ple per­mis­sion to so­lic­it do­na­tions and con­tri­bu­tions from cor­po­rate or pri­vate cit­i­zens for po­lice events must come from the CoP.

Checks were al­so made with di­vi­sion­al heads about this is­sue and ACP Pat­sy Joseph and ACP South Hodge Grif­fith in­di­cat­ed in their state­ments that there needs to be a pol­i­cy on this mat­ter. Nurse stat­ed in the re­port, "it is clear that the po­lice ser­vice does not have a pol­i­cy as it re­lates to so­lic­i­ta­tion and col­lec­tion of do­na­tions for po­lice events.

"It is there­fore sub­mit­ted that the prac­tice is com­mon in many ar­eas of the po­lice ser­vice and in this re­gard if done by Mr Hack­shaw should not in my re­spect­ful sub­mis­sion at­tract sanc­tions for him and no sanc­tions for the oth­ers."

When asked by the Sun­day Guardian if he was in sup­port of es­tab­lish­ing a clear pol­i­cy on this mat­ter, Hack­shaw said, "I have no ob­jec­tion to some kind of pol­i­cy for ob­tain­ing so­lic­i­ta­tion and do­na­tions for po­lice events, that de­ci­sion lies with the head of the or­gan­i­sa­tion."

HOW WAS THE MON­EY SPENT?

There was al­so the is­sue of whether Hack­shaw had used the monies for the in­tend­ed pur­pose. Nurse said based on their in­ves­ti­ga­tions ACP Hack­shaw had host­ed sev­er­al func­tions while in the South­ern Di­vi­sion and oth­er places where he worked.

This was cor­rob­o­rat­ed by the state­ments of chief clerk of the South­ern Di­vi­sion Cpl Ra­goonath and a guest Mr Gajram­s­ingh.

ACP Wen­dell Williams al­so in­di­cat­ed that the Po­lice­men Can Cook 2019 got off the ground with do­na­tions and con­tri­bu­tions from cor­po­rate T&T.

On pri­vate work per­formed by Hack­shaw, Nurse stat­ed that Williams and Phillip did not con­sent. How­ev­er, the mon­ey ob­tained by Hack­shaw for pri­vate work was not in con­tra­ven­tion of the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act.

Nurse said, "it was clear from the in­ves­ti­ga­tion that Hack­shaw per­formed con­sul­tan­cy work and was paid for it and the monies which flowed from such an arrange­ment should not be con­sid­ered crim­i­nal funds and will not fall with­in the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act."

Re­spond­ing to this mat­ter, Hack­shaw told Guardian Me­dia, "The com­pa­ny does risk con­sul­tan­cy and se­cu­ri­ty and so on, but that is far and few be­tween."

SIZE­ABLE DE­POSITS

Un­der the head­ing of Nurse's re­port "Analy­sis of Ev­i­dence," he notes that there were "size­able de­posits" made to Hack­shaw's ac­counts and the po­lice had ob­tained pro­duc­tion or­ders to scour these ac­counts. The po­lice even checked to see if the bank had raised any red flags, but they nev­er did. "At­tempts were made to as­cer­tain whether the banks re­quired the de­pos­i­tor to ex­plain the source of funds but there seemed to have been no such re­quire­ment for any of the de­posits. This be­ing so, left one to come to the con­clu­sion the de­posits were above board and there­fore raised no le­gal is­sues."

The is­sue of re­mit­tance of tax­es to the Board of In­land Rev­enue by Hack­shaw was al­so ex­plored by Nurse, who said he had sent the rel­e­vant cor­re­spon­dence to the state en­ti­ty. Hack­shaw lat­er pro­vid­ed state­ments in­di­cat­ing his tax­es were filed up to 2018.

NO CRIM­I­NAL OF­FENCE

Nurse con­clud­ed: "We have found no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that Mr Hack­shaw might be cul­pa­ble on the is­sue or re­ceiv­ing and so­lic­it­ing do­na­tions to host po­lice events. On the is­sue as to whether he re­ceived per­mis­sion to per­form pri­vate jobs, we have found that he did in fact re­ceive per­mis­sion to do so.

"In my re­spect­ful sub­mis­sion at this time, there is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest li­a­bil­i­ty on the part of Mr Hack­shaw for any crim­i­nal of­fence." He said the file would be sub­mit­ted to the TTPS's le­gal unit for ad­vice.

NURSE'S REC­OM­MEN­DA­TIONS

Nurse rec­om­mend­ed the fol­low­ing:

That the po­lice ser­vice must move speed­i­ly to de­vel­op a pol­i­cy as to how it spon­sors items on its an­nu­al cal­en­dar of events. By this, I mean it must be de­ter­mined whether it would spon­sor them ful­ly or whether the in­put of cor­po­rate T&T will be sought.

In the case where the in­put of cor­po­rate T&T and or pri­vate cit­i­zen will be sought, a pol­i­cy must be de­vel­oped in this area as to how the ser­vice will so­lic­it and re­ceive con­tri­bu­tions.

In de­ter­min­ing such poli­cies, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice ought to bear in mind that it must be an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion as it re­lates to the dis­charge of its roles and func­tions and that noth­ing should be done to com­pro­mise such in­de­pen­dence what­ev­er.


GRIF­FITH ON HACK­SHAW IN­VES­TI­GA­TION

Grif­fith told a me­dia brief­ing last Thurs­day that a po­lice of­fi­cer pos­sess­ing large fi­nan­cial as­sets does not crim­i­nalise the of­fi­cer. He ex­plained that it's the pos­ses­sion of such wealth with­out a valid rea­son that does. "We on­ly work on ev­i­dence. I find it in­ter­est­ing when per­sons au­to­mat­i­cal­ly la­bel a po­lice of­fi­cer be­cause that per­son may have two mil­lion dol­lars in their ac­count," Grif­fith said while ex­plain­ing that an of­fi­cer could be wealthy such as through in­her­i­tance or sell­ing of ap­pre­ci­at­ing as­sets such as land.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith ex­plained that the TTPS can al­ways re­open the in­ves­ti­ga­tion once new in­for­ma­tion comes to light–as it has done with oth­er cas­es.

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