A man who served time in prison for the mur­der of Dole Chadee’s broth­er, ex-con­vict Michael “Rat” Ma­haraj, has been de­nied bail and re­mand­ed in cus­tody on charges of de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­aces and sim­ple rob­bery.

Michael Ma­haraj, 53, along with Den­ish Ma­haraj, 42; ini­tial­ly ap­peared in court on Mon­day, charged with ex­tor­tion and rob­bery.

They were not called up­on to en­ter a plea re­gard­ing the charges, which in­clud­ed de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­aces and rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion.

Michael Ma­haraj al­so faced ad­di­tion­al charges of de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­aces and sim­ple rob­bery, for which he was de­nied bail.

Ma­haraj (M) was one of eight men re­leased in March 2024, af­ter spend­ing al­most three decades in prison, con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing the broth­er of drug king­pin Nankissoon Boodram, al­so known as Dole Chadee.

They were ac­cused of mur­der­ing Thack­oor Boodram in De­cem­ber 1997, and were con­vict­ed of the crime in 2002. 

Boodram, a pig farmer, was kid­napped from his home in south Trinidad on De­cem­ber 20, 1997. A ran­som was de­mand­ed by his ab­duc­tors, but ten days lat­er, his head was found in a whiskey box at the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site.

The ac­cused men es­caped the hang­man’s noose in 2006, af­ter the manda­to­ry death penal­ties they re­ceived were com­mut­ed to life im­pris­on­ment.

‘Re­port ex­tor­tion’

Mean­while, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials urged the pub­lic to con­tin­ue re­port­ing ex­tor­tion threats so in­ves­ti­ga­tions can be done and per­pe­tra­tors ar­rest­ed.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP), Crime, Richard Smith said records showed an in­crease in re­ports of ex­tor­tion threats, which had led to the con­clu­sion there had been “some de­gree of ex­tor­tion tak­ing place in the Cen­tral and North Cen­tral Di­vi­sions.”

So far for 2025, the unit has re­ceived 16 re­ports, six of which have been dealt with.