Those found guilty of fraud against old­er peo­ple will face the brunt of the law.

This was the warn­ing giv­en yes­ter­day by Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Don­na Cox sub­se­quent to a meet­ing she had with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to dis­cuss fraud.

Just mere days af­ter her con­tri­bu­tion to the Mid Term Re­view– where she high­light­ed sev­er­al in­stances of fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ty against old­er peo­ple– Cox met with Grif­fith in an at­tempt to mit­i­gate and treat with such ac­tiv­i­ties which oc­cur from time- to- time at the min­istry.

The meet­ing fol­lowed a pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion with the Su­per­mar­ket’s As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (SATT) on the is­sue of cash­ing se­nior cit­i­zens’ pen­sion cheques at su­per­mar­kets, as well as the is­su­ing of fake cheques and the bla­tant use of fake iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards by per­pe­tra­tors.

With the cur­rent im­ple­men­ta­tion of Phase II of the COVID So­cial Sup­port Re­lief Mea­sures, the meet­ing was al­so an op­por­tune time to es­tab­lish mech­a­nisms for ear­ly de­tec­tion of fraud, in or­der to safe­guard the pub­lic purse.

The fol­low­ing da­ta was shared in terms of in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­der­tak­en by the Po­lice Ser­vice so far:

­ 2019: Six re­ports in­volv­ing six vic­tims, amount­ing to the sum of $24,000.

­ 2020: Six­teen re­ports, in­volv­ing 58 vic­tims, amount­ing to the sum of $712,03.00.

­ 2021 (to 16th June): Sev­en re­ports, in­volv­ing 170 vic­tims, amount­ing to the sum of $431,300.00.

A state­ment from the min­istry said among the oth­er items dis­cussed at yes­ter­day’s meet­ing in­clud­ed:

Out­stand­ing mat­ters re­lat­ed to food card and food re­lief, which are cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice.

· Pro­ce­dures and arrange­ments for re­port­ing on mat­ters of fraud;

· The es­tab­lish­ment of an In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit at the min­istry;

· A col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach be­tween both the min­istry and the TTPS to treat with el­der abuse in all its forms.

· Mea­sures to mit­i­gate and man­age fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties re­lat­ed to those liv­ing abroad and re­ceiv­ing state funds un­der false pre­tences.

The re­lease said in re­sponse, Grif­fith ex­pressed his com­mit­ment to work­ing close­ly with the min­istry and of­fered per­ti­nent ad­vice in or­der to erad­i­cate the cas­es of fraud plagu­ing the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

He said, “I am quite hap­py to be in­clud­ed at this point in any dis­cus­sion re­lat­ed to fraud­u­lent be­hav­iour and I pledge the ser­vices of the TTPS to work close­ly with the min­istry. I will there­fore do my part to work with the min­istry in treat­ing with this very im­por­tant is­sue.”

Grif­fith said a fol­low up meet­ing is sched­uled to take place with oth­er de­part­ments of the Po­lice Ser­vice in or­der to ad­dress some of the oth­er is­sues raised in the meet­ing.

Cox said the min­istry re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with all stake­hold­ers to en­sure that “no one is left be­hind, and those who are found guilty of fraud will face the brunt of the law.”